Turkey Day: Just Desserts
by Haven126
Summary: On the anniversary of the ill-fated mission in Turkey, MacGyver and Dalton once again find themselves separated, and Mac makes a decision that has devastating consequences not only for himself, but the people who are most important to him. Finally, finally complete.
1. Chapter 1

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

This is a sequel to a previous story of mine called **Turkey Day**. It could probably stand alone, but it'll mean a lot more if you've read the first one. There are a lot of references (read: spoilers) to the first story in here.

 **General Content Warning** : This story will be darker than its prequel, and contains graphic violence, and non-explicit torture and rape themes in later chapters. Each chapter header will contain warnings as appropriate.

EDIT: For some reason FF won't let me post the word B1tcoin (if you throw in an i instead of a 1 there.) No idea why. From now on I'll refer to it as cyber currency or cyber coin.

-M-

Jack carefully hid a grin as the man across from him casually ripped a sheet of paper free of the legal pad, deliberately wadded it up, and chucked it at his head.

He dodged it absently, still intent on his own pad.

"Jack, that's the plot from the third Mission Impossible movie."

He painstakingly added the quintessential evil mustache to the third stick figure he'd drawn. "Well, my name's Ethan, might as well be Hunt, I'm a spy-"

A second piece of paper was methodically torn from the legal pad across from him. "You're a photojournalist."

For fun, Jack added some nerd glasses to the fourth stick figure. ". . . pretty much the same thing, when you think about it –"

This time the sheet of paper was being folded. The blond was going for accuracy on the next shot. He'd have to pay attention.

Mac was able to fashion his latest weapon and lecture him at the same time, which was a good sign. "Jack, you are _not_ going into the Hague and testifying that we were meeting the Chevaliers because we received a postcard with an embedded microdot asking for our help."

Jack chuckled, mostly to himself. "What, it makes sense. Ethan's got an eye for these things, he'd notice somethin' on the postcard –" He cut himself off voluntarily as the blond made quick work of separating the folded piece of paper into three equal pieces. So this was going to be a multi-pronged attack.

And then his partner paused. "You're not even . . . let me see your pad."

Jack shifted in the conference chair, so that the back of the pad was now facing across the table.

MacGyver watched him expectantly for a moment, then a frustrated smile started growing on his face. "It's covered in smiley faces, isn't it."

Jack surveyed his artwork. " . . . no." And that was the truth; not a single stick figure was smiling.

His partner sighed, then picked up one of his mini paper airplanes and twirled in his own conference room chair, staring out the floor to ceiling windows. They were essentially sequestered in one of the conference rooms on the sixth floor, one Jack hadn't visited in nearly a year. Coincidentally, the last time he'd been there he'd been being debriefed about the very thing they were discussing now.

Or not discussing. They'd been at it since about seven am, and the kid needed a break. Frankly so did he.

"Come on, Mac. Lemme have a little fun with this." He slapped the pad down on the table, dropping his pen on top of it. "Cause I'm pretty sure you're not gonna let me just shoot his ass."

At that angle, his back mostly to Jack, the early afternoon sun accentuated Mac's cheekbone rising in a grin. "Not unless you're going to do it with a camera, Ethan."

Jack made a disgusted sound. "Dude, I dunno what you think I'm into, but I ain't snappin' a photo of that bastard's derriere, I can tell ya that."

The blond let loose with a low chuckle. "Oh, but a bullet's a different story?"

"Damn straight it is." Jack couldn't keep the indignation out of his voice. "One's a message. The other's . . . just pervy."

He had to give it to the kid, he was good. Mac laughed, turning in his chair as if to look at him, and Jack didn't see his other hand moving until it was too late. He still tried to reflexively block, but the little yellow paper dart got past him and hit his left cheek.

Jack reached up and rubbed his face. "Ow. That shit's pointy."

His partner didn't look even remotely apologetic. "Jack, we have a perfectly good cover story, we were two journalists from Reuters, at the museum to go behind the scenes to get images of Coptic art for our article. Wrong place, wrong time."

"Well, yeah," Jack agreed, "but that's boring."

MacGyver stared at him for a long second. "You were attacked by an elite commando, kidnapped, almost killed, rescued by gypsies . . . what part of this cover story is boring?"

When he said it like that, it actually sounded pretty damn awesome. Not that he was going to admit that.

And having lived it, it wasn't as much awesome as it was impressive.

"The first part, obviously," and Jack gave him his best 'duh' expression. "Ethan Darby's an _adventurer_ , man. He dangles from catwalks to get the best shots. He challenges the locals to ghost pepper eating contests in bars when he needs the scratch. He wasn't just wanderin' around outside some lame museum and got knocked upside the head by anybody, elite commando or not." Then he thought better of it. "Two commandos, by the way. Two." He held up two fingers for emphasis.

Mac's eyebrows were raised, clearly unimpressed, and he picked up his second tiny paper airplane dart. ""Okay, fine. You're going to argue that Ethan's scrappy from all those ghost pepper eating contests gone wrong?"

Jack frowned across the table at him. "He ain't _scrappy_ , dude. This ain't Scooby Doo. Ethan Darby's a _badass_ , man. I got all those shots from hotspots 'round the world. He can handle himself in a fight."

Mac shook his head and inspected his ammunition, making a small adjustment to a rear flap.

"You're aware that you're going to be cross-examined, right?"

Yes. Yes he was. "Oh yeah. I got the perfect answer for anybody who asks about that supermodel exposé we did in India, too –"

MacGyver started to shake his head, then gunned the second dart his way. This time Jack was prepared, and managed to fend it off with a laugh.

"Simple, Jack. Think simple."

Jack glanced at the floor, trying to see where the dart went. Kid could use a taste of his own medicine. "Man, there ain't nothin' simple about this. I haven't studied this hard since I flunked my biology final in high school."

The table was strewn with papers – and very few of them were wadded up or folded into objects of aerial assault. It was all evidence, carefully crafted by Phoenix analysts, that was coming with them to the Netherlands for the trial of one Colonel Batuhan Aydin. He was being tried for war crimes and attempted genocide for his failed coup in Turkey last year, and thanks to the crankings of the political machine, he and Mac had front row seats.

Which, considering they weren't _actually_ Ethan Darby and Luka Morrow, journalists from Reuters, was the dumbest fucking thing Jack could possibly imagine.

He'd tried to reason with Matty – repeatedly. Putting two secret agents literally on the world's stage was a colossally stupid idea. He knew it was all politically motivated. If he asked Mac, the kid would tell him in painful detail that there had simply been too much communication between the Turkish government, NATO, and the State Department related to the assassination of the Chevaliers. Their murders had been reported widely across Turkey and neighboring countries. Greece's involvement, funding the rogue colonel Aydin via the very highly respected General Doukas – and Jack still referred to him exclusively as Count Dooku - had come out about three months later in the Greek tabloids. The current president of Turkey, Erdogan, had been furious not only about the US's botched attempt to exfiltrate and prosecute the Chevaliers – whom Erdogan was using to illegally identify and imprison his political adversaries, including Aydin – but also Greece's implicit support of overthrowing his government.

Since every country involved had been breaking international law, they had all eventually agreed to the very public trial of Colonel Aydin for war crimes, which Erdogan wanted to use to show the barbarity of his opponents and the strength of his government. NATO wanted to tout the victory and effectiveness of their peacekeeping forces. Greece wanted to use Aydin as a cautionary tale of what could happen to unhappy Greeks being seduced by far-right ideology. The US State Department simply didn't want their dirty laundry aired.

As for the Phoenix, Matty wanted to maintain the good relationship she'd started with NATO Strategic Commander Ian Ives, and throwing Luka Morrow and Ethan Darby in as witnesses at the trial was a small price for the State Department to pay to show that the US was indeed an ally to Turkey.

The entire thing, top to bottom, pissed Jack right the hell off. First things first, NATO hadn't rescued Mac. The Phoenix had – and they'd paid dearly for it. Second, he had it on high authority the bottle of scotch Matty had sent Ives for letting them steal that Huey and bug out from Aydin's mansion _easily_ paid for them to not have to put on a dog and pony show on an international stage.

Third, and most important, this trial was going to dredge up every terrible thing that had happened to Luka Morrow. Only it hadn't happened to Luka.

It had happened to Mac.

Luckily, they weren't the main event. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, he and Luka were simply two hostages that had been taken by Aydin to document his rise to power. Aydin had decided he only needed one journalist, ordering good ol' Ethan to be executed with the Chevaliers. A traveling group of gypsies had happened upon the execution site and saved Ethan's bullet-ridden ass, and then tried to ransom him back to the United States once they'd nursed him back to health.

Luka Morrow, on the other hand, hadn't been so lucky. After refusing to be Aydin's PR man, Luka had been tortured and kept as a hostage in case the United States decided to intervene. He was rescued by NATO forces when they took Aydin's compound.

He and Mac were just two more witnesses out of a hundred that would be telling their stories of surviving Aydin's _Bordo Bereliler_ and the colonel's ruthless quest to overthrow the Turkish government and establish martial law.

Because Director Bitch at the State Department wanted to look good, they had to drag his boy through every horrific second he'd been in the hands of Aydin and his men. The thought irritated Jack enough that he considered calculating how many seconds were in three weeks.

It would probably just give him a headache.

Mac could prolly calculate that in, like, less time than it took to ask him.

"Uh . . . Jack?"

Jack gave up glowering at the papers on the conference table, and glanced back up at his partner inquiringly. Mac was giving him almost the same look.

"You okay over there?"

He wiped the frustration off his face, and gave a resigned shake of his head. "Yeah. Just . . ." He waved a hand over the table. "You don't have to do this, you know."

All the levity Jack had been working so hard to put there was instantly replaced with Mac's game face, the one he usually wore when the topic of Turkey came up, and Jack almost kicked himself.

"Pretty sure we do, if we don't want to get fired."

"I mean it, man. Matty'd make your apologies to the State Department. She's been lookin' for an excuse to knock that dumbass director down a peg." And if she hadn't, she sure as hell should have been.

He managed to coax a half smile out of the blond. "It's okay, Jack. Besides, it's not Director Bosch's fault her analyst was in Aydin's pocket." His expression tightened a little. "And the colonel's still got plenty of supporters. The sooner he's convicted, the better."

Damn. Mac was still wound up about the incident last week.

Jack tugged his chair closer to the table, folding his hands and looking Mac dead in the eye. "It wasn't your bomb."

In the run-up to Aydin's trial, there had been an increase in clashes between the current president, Erdogan, and the same young protestors that Aydin had been trying to leverage a year ago. Erdogan's government had cracked down even more after Aydin's defeat and capture, and the people were angry. According to the media, someone had rushed the Parliament building wearing a suicide vest and succeeded in detonating it outside the Parliament Hall, killing themselves and injuring three staff.

According to American intelligence, which Jack already knew Mac had checked, the bomb had not been a suicide vest, but had actually been successfully smuggled in beneath a food service cart, and it detonated while the bomb squad was evaluating it.

And Jack knew damn well exactly what Mac had made of that piece of information.

One of the few things he could remember being forced to do was disarm a bomb. All Mac had told him was that by disarming it he'd taught them how to improve the design, and he was afraid that several iterations of design improvement could have gone by without his remembering it at all.

Even though NATO had gotten the mansion, the known recruitment centers, the storage facilities, he knew Mac didn't really believe that all of Aydin's men had been rounded up. He was probably right. There was a chance that someone out there had that bomb design.

And all that meant was that there was one more bomb design out in the world. One that Mac could disarm, and could teach others to disarm – which was exactly what he'd done when he sent the design to Charlie Robinson, his old Army EOD buddy over at the FBI headquarters in Quantico.

His partner took his declaration like a champ, with that little half-smile that could mean just about anything. "We won't know that until the remnants are analyzed -"

"Fine, dude, I know you won't believe me until you see those pieces with your own pair a' peepers, but Jack Dalton's got an instinct for these things, and I'm tellin' ya, you don't got anything to worry about."

Mac eventually gave a judicious nod. "I hope you're right."

"When have I ever been wrong about these things?"

This time Mac recognized verbal bait when he heard it, because he just shook his head and glanced back down at the table. "You know, if you'd actually focus on this, we could get out of here."

"Oh, I'm focused. Two laser beams, right here." He indicated his eyes. "Ethan's gonna be right beside you every step of the way, bud. He won't let ya down."

He received a snort. "Only if he testifies _after_ Luka. You need to take this seriously, Jack. There are real lawyers who are going to be picking apart every word trying to find some way to discredit the witnesses. You can't just make something up and hope Riley backstops you in time."

Well, there was that. "Look, if she could hack herself an invitation to the damn thing, I don't see why she couldn't just reschedule it."

Mac gave him an amused look. "Jack . . . everyone who's attending that grey hat conference hacked their own invitation. That's the only way to get one."

He shrugged, and dragged the next set of papers closer. "You remember when we walked into that room, and she pegged us as DXS in less than sixty seconds?"

His partner glanced at the color of the folder he'd picked up, and fished out its twin. "It was a pretty memorable first meeting."

"Yeah." He smiled fondly, and flipped open the folder without looking at it. "She told us we could reschedule Christmas if we wanted. And y'know, she wasn't wrong. She could move that conference to any damn week she pleased. Just like Phoenix could say no to this, Mac. You _don't_ have to do this."

Mac glanced down at the folder a moment, as if he truly intended to let it go, ignore the opening, keep working. Then gave up, and leaned back in his chair instead, studying the mess of papers on the table for a moment. ". . . I'm good, Jack. Really," he added, as if he was afraid he was going to be interrupted. Jack was content to give him a second to frame his thoughts.

"I didn't actually see the colonel all that much. Honestly, you were there for most of it." He shrugged, like the two times Jack had seen Aydin and Mac interacting were no big deal. Then his lips quirked. "And you already shot everyone else."

All the major players, anyway. There was no way to know if they'd gotten all the d-bags who'd laid a finger on him those three endless weeks. "Just 'cause they won't be in the room physically don't mean they won't be there in spirit, Mac."

The blond thought about that a second, then focused back on the folder with a strange little smile. "Good thing I don't believe in ghosts."

Jack held up a finger. "Now, I clearly remember you tellin' me _my_ ghost was all up in your face –"

"Hallucination," MacGyver corrected quietly. "You weren't actually dead. And Luka never saw you." Mac's eyes dropped to a stack on his right, and a white-bordered photograph was peeking out from the folder. Enough of the image was visible for Jack to make out a human arm.

Mac's arm. The photographic documentation that had been done of his injuries and sent ahead to Phoenix medical, so they could start designing his treatment plan even when he was still flying through the air, fifteen hours away.

Probably touched up to hide the worst of the damage. They were going to be blown up and displayed on the big screen for the whole court to see.

"You know they're gonna make ya talk about it," Jack said, as gently as he could. "That's the whole point of puttin' you on the stand."

Mac didn't open the folder, didn't so much as twitch in its direction. ". . . and Luka will. Aydin wanted to control the story, Luka refused. They beat him. Withheld food and water. Deprived him of sleep. Waterboarding, electric shock. Hung him by his wrists until they cracked. He almost escaped, once, but they shot him before he could clear the courtyard." Mac's voice was flat and calm. "Best day of his life was when NATO came through that door and cut him down."

If only it had been that simple. What Mac probably considered the worst parts – the drugs, the hallucinations, the interrogations and scenarios in which he gave up intelligence – the world was never going to hear about that. Not about the bomb, not about the transponder, not about the base codes.

They wouldn't hear about the panicking, half-starved, half-naked twenty something turning on his rescuers because he didn't know who they were. Or the days that followed, the hallucinations and fear of being recaptured that had driven that same man to hide from his family, loose in Los Angeles with a gun he was only willing to use on one person.

Mac didn't know it, but the bullet Jack had taken from the chamber of that gun was right there in the conference room with them.

Across from him, he saw Mac's Adam's apple bob, and then he raised his eyes. They were serious, but steady. "A civilian wouldn't be able to handle that as well as a trained agent. If Luka gets a little quiet on the stand, well . . . that'll just give his testimony authenticity." With that apparently firmly decided, Mac refocused on the folder in front of him. "And if that testimony helps build a case against the colonel, it's time well spent. I don't have to tell you what would happen if he were to somehow be acquitted."

No. No he didn't. "Dude, that ain't gonna happen. Besides straight up admitting he killed the ambassador and his family, they've got him and his men for another seventy-two murders. The only way he's getting outta this is if he buys the jury, which is kinda hard to do when it's made up of countries, not people, and besides, all his funding dried up when we took down Count Dooku. One man's testimony ain't gonna make or break this."

Mac held up a hand. "I'm not saying I'd make or break the case against him, Jack. But I _am_ responsible for his organization getting their hands on a lot of firepower, which hasn't been fully recovered –"

"Whoa whoa whoa now hoss, slow it down there. You and I been through this –"

"Jack-"

"Unless you got a shiny job at the UN you ain't told me about, you didn't give them creds to land those birds."

Mac stared at him a moment, just a few degrees from an outright glare, and Jack backed off a little. "Now, you know I respect that, cleaning up your own mess. God knows I've insisted on it enough times myself, even when it was stupid and I shouldn't'a. I really ain't sure this is one of those times-"

"I am." His partner's tone was final. "It's my mess, and it's my call."

Jack leaned away from the table, holding up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay . . . fair enough. You just tell me this, then. If we go and we testify and they put him away, is that clean enough for you?"

The stare turned up another degree, but this time Jack met him head on, and after a few seconds Mac's eyes shifted to the right as he thought. ". . . well, barring some all-out assault his remaining men might launch against the Turkish government, I don't see how I can ever actually track down all the weapons taken from Camp Bondsteel-"

"Yes or no, dude."

Mac mirrored his position, leaning back in his chair, and the glare petered off into something else. Maybe frustration. ". . . well, it'll have to be. I don't know what else I can do."

Jack was quiet, letting the words sink in. Hoping that now that Mac had said them, he might actually _hear_ them. There was nothing else he could do. Once Aydin was convicted, sentenced, and locked away safe and sound by the court, it was over. Turkey was stable enough to put down any revolution led by a lesser figurehead. They might never find the hacker that had been working for the colonel, maybe never know if all Aydin's moles in the Turkish intelligence department were truly rooted out, but that was usually the way these things worked.

And at some point, it had to be good enough. Not good enough for him, or for Matty, or the State Department. Good enough for Mac. The kid's willingness to put himself through such a painful but essentially unnecessary process seemed like nothing more than self-punishment to him. And he hoped like hell that wasn't what it was.

Mac had nothing to be sorry for. Not one fuckin' thing.

"Okay," he finally said into the silence. "You know I'm with you one hundred percent, Mac. If this is what it takes, let's do it."

Mac's pensive look faded into confusion for a second. "So . . . if we'd just _started_ with this conversation, instead of having it . . ." He glanced at his cellphone screen a moment. " . . . five hours into this, we could have been done by now?"

Jack shot him a grin. "Listen, brother, if you'd'a just agreed with me that the microdot idea was gold we could be noshin' on burgers and shakes right now."

Mac took a deep breath, then groaned and scrubbed his face. "We stick with the original cover story."

Jack dropped his hands back to the table. "You know what, fine. I'm hungry, you're hungry, let's break for lunch." He glanced around, but there didn't seem to be a little wooden hammer handy, so he picked up his phone and tapped it on the table, twice.

Two blue eyes peered between Mac's fingers. "It's called a recess when it's a break during court, Jack."

"Awesome. That was my favorite class in school." He bounced to his feet, pocketing his smartphone gavel, and Mac gave up and stood as well, stretching with a little yawn. Jack watched him while pretending to turn his nose up at the remaining documents they still needed to review.

If he didn't know Mac like he did, it would seem like it had never happened. The lost weight was long since back on, those gangly-ass arms and legs fit right in his clothes. The wrists even looked good; he'd had plastic surgery on them about three months back, to pare off what Bozer's magical cream couldn't heal. His father's watch hid his left wrist, but his right one looked pretty damn good. There was a light little band around it, like he'd been wearing something on that wrist the last time he'd gotten sun, and it hadn't tanned as much as the rest of his skin. But all the red scar tissue was basically gone.

He saw the kid rub them occasionally, so he figured they were still a little numb. Maybe always would be, nerves never really did heal right and Mac had taken some damage there. Far as Jack could tell, he was getting sleep – when their mission schedule permitted – and he hadn't flinched once, not since they'd both recertified back into the field.

His own left leg, on the other hand, had decided it wanted to be a damn comedian and was far better than KTLA's weatherman at predicting when fronts were coming through. Other than aching every time it rained – whether he was in LA or not – he was still pressing the same weight and running the same distances he had before the gunshot. And he'd been considering getting the same surgeon that had worked on Mac to take a stab – no pun intended – at the scars on his belly. What he'd thought would be manly kinda looked like he'd had a C-section.

Though being the first man on earth to have a baby would be pretty bad-ass . . . and would have to be a C-section, otherwise that li'l rugrat'd be slidin' outta his –

Jack winced, then turned for the door, and his partner gave him a strange look.

"Do I want to know?"

Jack shook his head. "Nope."

Mac made a little sound of discomfort as they stepped out. "These chairs always put my butt to sleep."

They walked into the hall side by side, and Mac pulled the doors closed behind them. He appreciated Mac giving him the out, but it was a little too much like pandering to an old man, and Jack raised a playful eyebrow.

"You sure you got enough meat on that bony ass to _pu_ t to sleep?"

Oddly, his partner merely smiled as they walked down the hall. "I don't kiss and tell, but I will say that a certain someone thought it was perfectly fine last week . . ."

"Oh? Oh, is that what she said? This is 'perfectly fine'?" Jack chuckled and punched the button for the elevator. "Who are you seein', a nerd? Why yes, this is perfectly fine. Your backside is completely acceptable." He did his best stuffy British voice.

Mac laughed, a free and easy one that was music to Jack's ears. ". . . Not exactly. Hey, I thought you'd be happy, you've been after me to start dating again."

"Well, yeah, of course I am!" He clapped his partner on the back as the elevator dinged and Mac turned towards it. "I was hopin' you'd date a girl instead of a computer, but . . ." Then his mind caught back up to what part of Mac they were discussing, and Jack grinned at his unintended pun. " _But_ . . . since she apparently got you outta your drawers, she can't be all bad. You like the hot librarian look?"

Mac's eyebrows flew upwards. "Hello, Matty."

Jack blinked, completely thrown, and made a face. "Not sure I'd call her look 'hot librarian' . . ."

"Well that's a relief, Dalton. I wasn't really trying for it."

He glanced back into what had initially appeared to be an empty elevator cabin to find Matty was standing in one of the front corners, and he flinched a little, because he was already on a roll and why not just go for it full tilt. "Well, damn, aren't you sneaky today."

His partner simply pressed his lips together and stepped briskly onto the elevator, and after evaluating Matty's glower to determine if he'd just volunteered himself to take the stairs, Jack also sidled in – on the opposite side.

"I was just coming upstairs to see how 'Luka' and 'Ethan' were doing on finalizing their cover stories."

She looked between the two of them meaningfully, and Mac actually chuckled a little. His ears were also turning slightly red.

"Well, we've finished up the backstory synch and the time with Aydin, we're working on the rest now. Ethan's return to work, Luka's rehab –"

"Which apparently includes hot librarians getting you out of your 'drawers'?" Matty asked innocently.

Mac cleared his throat and shifted a little. "Well, now that you mention it, Luka _does_ have an on again off again-"

"How about off until the two of you get your act together," Matty snapped, ending Mac's attempt at rescuing himself. "You are seasoned agents and this isn't your first undercover op. You should have had this knocked out three hours ago! And I hope I don't need to remind you that it needs to be airtight. It's bad enough we've been dragged into this farce, I don't need two of my best agents getting caught with their pants down during cross examination."

Jack laughed out loud. "Good one, that was a good one, boss. See, you know you like the puns-" He closed his mouth as the glare transferred to him. "Good one," he said, in a more professional tone.

She cocked her head to the side. "Don't think I don't know the delay is all you, Jack. How many movie plots has he tried to insert into the story so far?"

Jack put on an affronted look. His partner smirked. "Three. But, since his name's Ethan –"

Matty just rolled her eyes as the elevator came to a smooth stop on the first floor. "Let me guess. Mission Impossible." She sighed and started out the doors almost before they opened. "You're no Ethan Hunt, Jack. Too tall, and I can't believe I'm saying this, not crazy enough."

Jack watched her go, still trying for the injured look, and Mac left his smirk firmly in place as he followed her, with a little bounce to his step.

"And better lookin'!" he called out after them, then frowned and followed his partner. Matty was headed to the War Room, and didn't bother to snap back a reply, and Mac took a sharp right and took them across the lobby towards the break room.

-M-

"Oh. That's hot."

The voice rose above the general din of the dealer's room, clearly meant for them, and Riley Davis didn't respond. Instead, she turned the board over in her hands and traced the water cooling lines – built into the board, rather than added after manufacturing – back to the processor. Dedicated lines for GPUs and CPUs, wound through the heatsink and rigid. She pressed a thumbnail into the material, and it gave a little, but didn't shatter or indent.

The woman across from her grinned. "It's a new material. Extremely conductive, puts up with the same temperatures as the silicone and graphene. Won't carry a charge, just takes away the heat."

"And you're running . .. distilled water?"

The hardware rep shook her head, and her various rings, studs, bars, and earrings made a melodious chiming sound. "I mean you can, but you can swap in any coolant you like. The tubes are corrosion resistant, and have enough play they can take the same abuse as the rest of the rig. Best part is, the material's like glue when it melts. You can fix any leak in seconds with a soldering iron."

Riley raised her eyebrows and turned the board over again, eyeing it critically. "Where's the reservoir placed? Pump and fan, all told, what's the weight on a system like this?"

"Oh, keep talkin' dirty to me, ladies."

Riley glanced at the other woman. She was about the same age, though she was pale-skinned with hair so light blonde it might as well have been white. She had more piercings than Riley could easily count, as well as gorgeous tattoo sleeves, all done in delicate blues, violets, and greens. Her lips were a very pale pink, with the kind of gloss that looked like hard candy, and her dark blue eyes were accentuated by blacks, blues, and topaz in her eyeliner and lid cover.

She was clearly going for the android look, which Riley appreciated, and the spark in her eyes told Riley that she was more than willing to play along.

"The pump is external, along with the fan and reservoir. There's a quick connect port here –" and the woman gently brushed her fingertips across Riley's wrist as she manipulated the board to present it – ". . . and the system has a pressure sensor so it knows when to switch to air cooling. It's a very . . . discreet solution."

Riley let her lips curve up invitingly. "I like that."

The other woman tilted her head just so, and kept playing with Riley's wrist. "You do?"

"Mmm-hmm." She glanced down at the board again, then leaned closer to the other woman. "And you know what else?"

"What?" It was a flirtatious breath.

"I see something else that looks just as yummy." Riley held the woman's eyes a long moment, then turned with one of Samantha Cage's slow blinks to stare at the guy who was only a few feet away, watching them intently.

"Oh yeah," the other woman purred. "Definitely."

The guy's eyebrows slowly rose, and his leering smirk grew wider. Riley bit her lower lip, then left the board with the rep, heading towards him with a suggestive sway of her hips. When she was right in front of him, close enough to smell the Axe body spray, she deliberately looked him up and down.

The guy's hands came up, and she caught him around the wrists, then stared right into his eyes.

"You're in my way," she told him, not changing her tone in the slightest – and then she put him in a wrist lock and propelled him out of the booth.

His smirk morphed into a yelp of pain, which Riley completely ignored, and then she took one more step forward – to the table that he'd been standing in front of – and picked up a tiny little power supply that could only be described as 'fucking adorable.'

"What's the output on this little guy?"

"Hey, bitch –"

Riley turned on him instantly, taking the three steps between them, and it was gratifying to watch him actually backpedal. "Dude, I'm here for hardware, which you clearly don't have. Back off or I put you on the floor – and trust me, you won't enjoy it."

He opened his mouth and she let her eyes flash. By this point they'd attracted a little bit of attention – and a little bit was all she wanted. It was enough that he noticed too, and Riley turned her back on him and stalked back into the booth. He muttered something, but she didn't bother to listen, and the woman manning the booth shot her an admiring smile.

"Nice. This is clearly not your first con."

Riley scoffed, then shook her head. "Not yours either."

"Nope." The blonde took the power supply from Riley, turning it so she could see the bottom, and then slid what had looked like a solid chassis apart with her thumb, revealing two rails to allow it to be mounted on any board. "And this little fella puts out nineteen volts, eight amps. Not enough for real gear, but absolutely does the job if you need processing power in a small package."

"Nice." It was offered back and Riley took it, checking the rails and noticing not only did it leave a lot of room for adjusting, but it had three different diameter of screw holes, to accommodate tablets, laptops, or whatever else you needed to attach it to. "I haven't seen this stuff anywhere."

"You won't." The blonde glanced up at the wall behind them, which proclaimed her booth to be Mythrill Ltd. A nice play on Lord of the Rings' legendary mithril and the Myth games, the sixth installment of which was running in demo on Mythrill hardware, flawlessly. "I designed most of it, have it manufactured in Hong Kong. I've got suppliers I trust in Africa producing the silicone and graphene, and it all gets assembled in – well, in my boyfriend's flat. By him and three of his closest pals."

Riley appreciated the candor. "So you're not lookin' for a big slice of the market."

"Nope. This hardware isn't exactly meant for common consumption."

Almost in unison, they turned and glanced back into the hall, where the loser script kiddie had withdrawn to another aisle to lick his wounds.

Honestly, there wasn't much difference between the dealer room here and the dealer room at any other convention. In fact, after Jack had expressed his usual amount of confusion at a hacker convention – including suggesting it was going to be held in the organizer's mom's basement – she'd finally made him understand by telling him it was just like a gun show, but with military-grade weaponry.

He'd been a lot more interested once that concept had sunk in.

And frankly, the comparison was way closer than most people would think. The hardware and software for sale here, by well-known vendors like Cisco and Alienware, as well as more boutique outfits like Mythrill, was just as deadly when weaponized. This was the kind of hardware you needed if you wanted to actually make money mining cyber currency. Or building a tiny drone capable of launching a chemical strike. She had no doubt there were people here from the NSA, the military, DHS – anyone who had the skills to get an invitation was welcome.

Wasn't like anyone was wearing ID. Not even access badges. If you actually knew where the hell this was going down, you belonged here. And if you didn't, the people around you would figure it out – fast.

Riley glanced down the aisle again, scanning the other booths in line of sight, but everyone else was either gaming rigs, or software. Her gaze returned to the tiny power supply, holding it up to the light a moment. "I got a squad who'd be all over these. What would an order of, say, thirty set me back?"

The blonde's eyebrows rose. "That's a hell of a squad."

Riley grinned. "Nah. We all just like our toys." A power supply this small could allow them to get the processing capacity of a laptop into something smaller than a normal USB stick. And sure, they could backwards engineer it, but why go to all that trouble when they could purchase them from a reputable source.

At least, a source Riley considered reputable.

The woman just inclined her head with a smile. "Batch like that'd take me a week to get ready."

"Not a problem." Riley glanced around her, at the system board cooling system combo. "And I think I _really_ want one of those."

"Not sharing that, huh?"

They laughed as Riley followed her further into the booth, where she had a tablet set up taking orders. "Nope, that's all for me."

"And you are?"

Gone were the days Riley would admit to being Artemis37. If she'd been giving a talk she might have – but she wasn't. Matty had made that quite clear. For the privilege of taking three days off, almost completely dark, with no location data at an undisclosed hotel, Matty had insisted that Riley bring back anything she thought looked interesting, and drew zero attention to herself.

So Riley fished out an ID that everyone in the hotel knew was fake, and the other woman scanned it into the tablet. "Sarah Conner?"

Riley smirked. "Inside joke. Besides, Beyoncé was taken." Jack had adored that fake license.

"Nah, chica, that's badass." She tied the scanned identity to a randomly generated one, then handed back the ID. "You a woman only crew?"

No. Though she had a feeling this chick would get along well with Matty. "We're . . . more interested in the skills, no matter how unlikely the package." Bozer came immediately to mind. And honestly, just looking at Mac, you'd think he was a preppy post-grad more interested in chasing girls than terrorists. "But I'm glad to see you and I aren't the only ladies here this year."

One glance at the world of IT showed the enormous imbalance of male to female contributors. It wasn't that there were so many fewer women – it was that they were punished for being good at their jobs. Hackers were a more representative spread, because no one gave you shit for your boobs if they thought you were a dude. Or your skin, your country, your fashion . . . it was all about avatars and message threads. But coming out into the open like this – even for a grey hat event, so this one wasn't even illegal – was still a risk. And still very much the boy's club.

Her little display would make the rounds in a hurry. It'd keep the boys on better behavior with Mythrill's owner, and it would keep the heat off her.

Still, there were other chicks out in that aisle, more than she usually saw at events like this. Short, tall, fat, thin, brown and white – they were all sisters, and even if they wouldn't stand up for one another physically, she knew damn well that asshole script kiddie that had hassled them was going to get no end of hell rained down on him, by men and women alike, for his behavior.

She'd already cloned his phone. As soon as she got back to her room, his rig was going to become hers.

The blonde showed her a figure – which was about in line with what she'd thought – and Riley accepted the tablet, opening up her cyber coin wallet and approving the transfer. Someone at the Phoenix – or DXS at the time – had been bright enough to squirrel away some cyber currency when the currency was first developed. They'd had the computing power to mine their own, and that investment had paid for itself a thousand times. She'd had the keys modified, so they didn't look quite as old as the originals – that would be hard to explain – and the transaction went through without a hitch.

Now she just had to explain to Matty that it was money well spent.

"When we're ready to ship, I'll text you for the address."

Riley nodded, and threw in a Google Voice number. It tied back eventually to a virtual phone out in the cloud, which would be as far as any hacker could get to the next three hops to another virtual phone that was installed on her rig.

No one here expected any less.

"Been a pleasure, Miss Connor."

"And you . . . uh –"

The blonde grinned. "Let's go with Tera."

Riley nodded, and shook the outstretched hand. "Pleasure chatting with you, Tera. See you at the social later?"

"Con suite?"

"You know it."

Her wad of cash effectively spent, Riley browsed the rest of the vendors on the aisle. There was some cool software, not Phoenix appropriate but certainly conceptually worth checking out. The large conference TV at the end of the aisle gave the speaking schedule and rooms, and Riley browsed it before she decided she had some downtime. It was only nine pm.

Good time for a nap. 27FlyingMonks was part of a panel on cyber currency key mods at 2 am, which she definitely wanted to hit, and there was a fair amount of overlap between hackers and gamers. Naughty Dog Games was looking for real hackers to voice some characters for their upcoming game, and Riley was just curious enough to check into it.

Not that she would volunteer. That'd be a hell of a way to get real hackers' voices sampled for future comparison, or in an attempt to circumvent multi-factor authentication. She really just wanted to go for the laughs. And maybe a download code to beta the next game coming out.

This particular convention had landed in Vegas, where the clothes and the gear wouldn't look out of place. Las Vegas was the site of many legitimate tech conferences, and the hotels didn't know the difference. Neither did law enforcement, usually. She took the elevator up to the twelfth floor, pleased that she wasn't sharing it, and fished the honeypot phone out of her pocket, just to see.

Oh yeah. Twenty-seven attempts to clone, fifteen to exfil data. She scrolled through the list even as the doors opened, and she nodded to the older couple who didn't seem at all surprised to see a woman in ripped jeans and a tank stepping off onto the floor of a very posh hotel.

Everything was cool in Vegas.

She keyed into her room, logging into her rig to check the cams. Outside of housekeeping coming in, no one had passed by the cam she'd hidden in the slats of the closet door. Riley IDed the jackhole who'd hassled her and Tera and started a quiet scan, then scoured down the list of those who had attempted to get into her phone.

She wasn't legitimately upset with them; a honeypot was something temping you intentionally put out for hackers, to see who would stick their hand in. Basically a boobytrap. Conventions like this were a good way to brush up on your skills and find the latest exploits. People tried things out in a place like this, because if a technique was going to get you pwned, it would happen here without mercy. Better a fellow hacker set you on your ass than the FBI when you tried the same trick on a bank next month.

But none of the attempts had been anything she hadn't seen before. Probably automated crap running unattended on other phones. Just feeling the crowd out.

An alert pinged on her rig, and Riley toggled over, then reached into her duffle and grabbed a bag of chips. Scan on the script kiddie's machine came up with nine configuration errors, at least two of which were almost certainly honeypots. The rest were legit because the kid didn't know what he was doing.

In his defense, he'd hacked an invitation. But even within this crowd, there was a certain expectation of expertise outside of what was needed to find the site, parse the HTML, find the hidden IP address, hack _that_ system, and issue the invitation.

She decided a skull and crossbones graphic on his desktop and an eventually breakable encryption – say 128 bit – would teach him the lesson she wanted him to learn, and she'd just set it into motion when another alert popped up.

This one was a little more interesting.

Riley glanced over the scan results, then opened up a window and accessed the system. At least, she tried to. It wasn't airgapped, but it wasn't exactly accessible either. Wherever it was, it was on the hotel network, and it took Riley longer than it probably should have to realize why the hell she couldn't seem to execute any actual commands on the machine.

It had been hardwired to only accept input from its keyboard.

Riley stared at her screen a second, then grinned.

It was a scavenger hunt.

There were always multiple layers to hacker conventions, be them white, black, or grey hat. Little games the attendees or the organizers played on each other, to find like-minded individuals for more serious conversations. Black hat events were mostly illegal, so this kind of scavenger hunt could get you killed as frequently as it could score you a job. White hat events had this kind of thing, but it was almost always sponsored and resulted in some kind of prize and some swag, but nothing really worth your time.

Grey hat events – where the good guys and the bad guys mingled – now this could be anything from a secret consuite to a threat hunter gig to a quick meeting with the regional NSA director. But whatever it was, it was bound to be interesting.

And the system had come online only in the last twenty minutes, which meant she might have been the first to figure it out.

Riley backtracked, and used credentials she'd stolen the first hour she'd been on site to access the hotel routing system. Less than sixty seconds later she tucked her room key and a dry erase marker into her back pocket and slipped out into the hallway.

She could almost hear Mac and Jack in her head as she waited for the elevator. She should have changed clothes, put on a ball cap to hide her face from the cameras. Maybe taken the stairs instead. Hell, she probably should have commandeered a housekeeping uniform and cart. It was way too obvious, taking the elevator, letting them see her approach.

And if this was a spy situation, she'd agree. But it wasn't. It was a hacker scavenger hunt situation, and she would need all that proof to show that she and she alone followed the clues to the prize.

Then Jack reminded her this almost certainly fell outside the realm of Matty's order not to attract attention. Which was probably true. And there was going to be a little B and E involved, which was technically something that could land her in the pokey. Mac chimed in helpfully that the less evidence of the break-in she left, the stronger the argument that the door 'just opened.'

Her mental Jack glared at her mental Mac and accused him of contributing to the delinquency of an impressionable young person. Mental Mac reminded mental Jack that Riley was not a minor and also not terribly impressionable even in the most ideal of situations. Riley gave mental Mac a high five.

She could have hacked the card system and given herself master key access, but that seemed a little overkill, and would have cost her several minutes, plus needing a machine to update the magnetic strip on her card. Something a little more old-school would still get the job done.

The doors opened onto the nineteenth floor, and Riley strolled off the elevator, using the sign to determine which direction room 1968 could be found in.

The hall wasn't empty.

Riley kept her movements casual, and fished her phone out of her other pocket, idly scrolling through messages. There were two gents in perfectly nondescript clothing, standing in front of a door, heads bowed in quiet conversation. One glanced up at her as she came towards them, and Riley completely ignored them.

They were at the wrong room. 1964.

The door to that room suddenly opened, and a third guy joined the first two. They headed towards her in a triangle formation.

Riley looked up, as if she'd just noticed them, and gave them a little nod as they slipped into single file. She paid close attention to the foot position of the trailing male, but he made no move to turn on her, and then they were past. Once she got to 1966, she paused, bringing up her other hand as if texting a message, and waiting for the quiet trio to turn into the elevator bay.

Which they did. Probably just guys at someone's bachelor party or blowing off steam at the blackjack table.

Riley shook her head at herself a little, even if her mental Jack was still insisting that it was always better to be safe than surprised, and she pulled the dry erase marker and her key card out of her pocket, and approached 1968. The key card she fumbled with, as if she couldn't quite get it in the slot, and the dry erase marker, she inserted into the power jack on the bottom of the door lock. Because it wasn't _just_ a dry erase marker. The body of the marker hid an Arduino, with a jack replacing the marker's felt tip, and it was designed specifically to bypass Omni-branded locks. To anyone passing by in the hallway, it would look like she was just holding onto the lock in order to steady her key card hand, but the Arduino hidden in the body of the marker did its thing, and the lock popped.

She withdrew her key card from the lock, then quietly opened the door.

The room was empty, which was good. Meant she was the first one here. It looked as if it hadn't been touched. It was a double, with both lamps between the beds lit, and on the hotel desk across from them was a laptop, the screen glowing a light blue. Riley checked the bathroom – including the shower - and the closet before she sat down in front of the laptop, and woke it out of sleep.

Nothing displayed but a single white text box on an otherwise light blue screen.

Which was obviously just the image sitting on top of the OS. Riley used a set of commands that should have brought up a Linux command box, but didn't.

. . . at least, not visibly.

Riley smirked and typed in the correct commands anyway, as if she could actually see what she was typing, and soon enough she'd gotten the masking screen down. The image now displayed was a mirror of the room she was sitting in, except there was a brown-haired guy sitting in the chair instead of her. Riley waved a hand – and the image of the man in the chair mirrored her. She moved her other hand, with the same result.

She glanced back over her shoulder, looking for the capture camera, but nothing leapt out, and as she turned back to the laptop, she got just a glimpse of the avatar's face.

Riley glanced around the room, then noticed that she was sitting directly across from a framed mirror, hanging on the wall. She grinned, then stood up. So did the avatar.

Then she tilted her face up, away from the screen to the mirror, and watched the monitor as best she could.

On the screen, she could see from the reflection he generated that he was in his late twenties, deeply tanned, and his hair was light brown and straight. He was also smiling, and when Riley schooled her features, the man in the mirror kept smiling.

"Hello," she said, and the image mimicked the word, but she didn't hear any audio.

Riley sat back down, and tried to access the computer's speakers. Now that she knew what he looked like, the next part of the hunt would be locating him within the hotel. As soon as she got audio up, she'd need to take a snap of the monitor to run it through facial rec.

Once she got audio on, she stood up again, this time fishing her phone back out, and she lost her balance and fell into the desk as a sudden wave of lightheadedness washed over her. _Stood up too fast_ , she thought, sucking in a deep breath and focusing on the mirror. She flicked to the phone's camera, but it slipped out of her clumsy fingers, and then Riley found herself on the floor. She didn't even feel herself hit it, barely heard the sound of the chair crashing over beside her.

Riley took another deep breath, still trying to clear her head, but like before, it had the opposite effect. Something was moving above her; it was the silhouette of a human, but the face was all wrong, elongated like a monster from a video game. She knew she should be terrified, she should be reaching for her phone, for a weapon, anything –

But when a gloved hand descended towards her, all she felt was numb.

-M-

So here we go. The sequel I said I wouldn't write til NaNoWriMo. It'll become clear in six or seven chapters why I decided to get it done before next season starts up. This is set pre Season Two finale, and Cage is in Australia recuperating from getting shot.

Because I am not trying to get it written in a month, updates for this will happen slower than the first story. Sorry about that, because there are going to be a couple of whoppers of chapter endings and I'm not intentionally torturing you folks. You've been super amazing, and this little experiment has turned into a hobby I really enjoy. So thank you! This one is being written for you peeps.


	2. Chapter 2

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning:** Somewhat graphic threats of violence. More sensitive readers may want to skim.

-M-

"I'm amazed you're even allowed back in the country. Considering the last trip?"

MacGyver couldn't help a grin as his roommate came to join them at the fire pit, tucking his 'Kiss the Cook' apron to the side as he found a seat and his beer. Jack, for his part, smirked and set a half-eaten cheeseburger back on his paper plate.

"Yeah. That was a pretty memorable first overseas mission, huh."

Bozer shook his head incredulously. "At the time, it really sucked, but it made a hell of an icebreaker at spy school."

Mac could appreciate that. "I'll bet. It's not every day you get blown up, labeled a terrorist, and disavowed."

His partner shook a ketchup-stained finger in their direction. "I'd argue about that first part. And the disavowed piece is another reason we shoulda worked more Ethan Hunt into our cover story-"

"Jack." It dripped with reproach. "What you and Mac are doin' isn't Mission: Impossible. It's Law and Order."

The older man made a face and finally located a napkin, wiping off his hand. "Way to make it sound like more of snooze fest than it'll already be. 'Sides, too much military and government influence. More like Homeland."

Bozer snorted. Loudly. "Well, let's hope there's less action."

Mac tipped his beer towards his best friend. "Hear hear."

Across from them, Jack wadded up the soiled paper napkin and tossed it into the fire. "Bozer, we talked about you jinxin' our missions –"

"Only the ones I go on-"

Mac shook his head and sipped his beer as the conversation moved towards friendly bickering. He didn't watch any of the shows they were throwing out, and as far as jinxing the mission, there wasn't much Bozer could really do. The Netherlands were far from Turkey, opposite side of Europe in fact. Security would be tight, the building was nearly impenetrable, and even if something did happen, they had a friend in town.

"-my point is, we were told flat out to stay out of Amsterdam for a while, and it hasn't been all _that_ long. I'm sure he remembers you."

"Pretty sure he remembers all of us," Mac pointed out reasonably. "He was especially impressed with the processed food prosthetics."

His roommate reared back and stared at him like he was insane. "Are you kidding?! They'd both melted back into gelatin and tapioca by the time he saw 'em. Though on the bright side, you coulda eaten the evidence if things had worked out different. I still think Riley really had the most impact."

Hard to argue with that. While the three of them had eventually been cornered and handcuffed in the lobby of the Militaire Inlichtingen-en Veiligheidsdienst headquarters, Riley's soothing voice had come over the PA system like a professional film narrator. She'd managed to put together enough of the video of them securing the bomb from Olivia Pryor to at least prevent them from being shot, and once she'd also surrendered, the Deputy Director had allowed her to consult with his own forensics experts to reconstruct the rest of the evidence.

They'd been on a plane less than six hours later. In hindsight, perhaps impressed wasn't quite the right word. Harlan Wolff hadn't exactly been pleased to discover the four people he thought were terrorist bombers were in fact US intelligence operatives, working illegally on foreign soil. He'd just been pragmatic enough to recognize that their reason for being there – to confirm intelligence that a member of Dutch parliament was working with terrorists, even though that turned out not to be the case – was in fact a pretty good one. And once Matty had assured him that they would have shared the intelligence, had it proven to be accurate, he'd made his own decision that an international incident wasn't in either of their interests.

The plot that Chrysalis – Patricia Thornton – had set into motion to take their team out of play had in fact resulted in giving Bozer the confidence to continue pursuing field work, and allowed Jack to tick 'get disavowed' off his bucket list.

Mac took a second to wonder if Jack's bucket list was actually written down, and if so, how he could acquire a copy.

"Yeah, well, as far as _impact_ is concerned, pretty sure Jack did the lion's share there." The physical kind, anyway. Jack had mowed down at least four of their tac team before reinforcements had arrived and cut off their escape.

His partner shot them a broad grin. "Damn right I did. Bet they changed up their whole quick reaction team setup after that."

Bozer just shook his head. "Well, neither me nor Riley'll be there to bail you out this time, so you two stay on your best behavior, alright?"

"Relax, Bozer. We're flyin' into a regional airstrip, our covers are good, and Riley wiped our mugs outta INTERPOL's database ages ago. Unless he's still carryin' around photos of us in his wallet, ol' Wolfie ain't never gonna know we were even there."

"Yeah, well, I can't imagine it'll go over too well if he does. Two spies he threw out of the Netherlands for operating illegally on Dutch soil are testifyin' because they were operating illegally on Turkish soil."

Mac thought about that for a second. "Y'know, when you put it like that, it sounds like we work outside the law a lot more than we actually do . . ."

His roommate outright laughed. "Are you kiddin' me? Name the last time we got through a mission without committin' at least one felony."

Mac started going down a mental list, which was not good enough for his friend, who set down his beer to start counting on his fingers.

"Yeah, that's right. The last mission where no one stole a car, broke into someplace, assaulted somebody-"

Jack gestured at the pair of them with his beer bottle. "Now now, let's clarify. It ain't assault if it's in self defense, or you're an extension of the court, which we are. We are fully cleared to make arrests, Boze."

"Actually, Jack . . . he's right. Not about the arrests," Mac clarified. "I honestly can't think of the last time we went on a mission without committing at least one felony. Computer crimes, mostly. We have warrants for some of it, but not to access traffic cams in foreign countries, or even private security systems in this one."

And they did have a habit of acquiring transportation on the fly. Mac supposed making sure it was returned to the original owner on the back end didn't negate the lack of permission to borrow it in the first place. "You could also make the argument that most of the weapons or distractions I build are vandalism and larceny. Not to mention possession of illegal arms. Just because I built it doesn't mean I'm legally permitted to operate a bazooka, or detonate homemade military grade explosives."

Jack dismissed all that with a careless wave. "Yeah, but that ain't hurtin' anybody. Well, I mean, anybody but the bad guys, and you can't tell me they don't deserve it."

"Threatenin' officials, obstruction of justice, kidnapping, arson . . ." Bozer ticked them off. "Pretty sure the only felonies I haven't committed in the last year are tax evasion and possession of child pornography."

"Actually . . ." Mac did a little quick math. "Pretty sure you made enough money at that casino in South Africa –"

Bozer swatted at him. "Yeah, but I didn't get to _keep_ it."

Mac laughed and scooted to safety. "Doesn't matter. You made it at the tables and then used it to rent the suite, so it was income and expenditure well outside the normal business allocation. Technically you should have reported it."

His roomie huffed. "Fine. I'll go find out if _Claude Estovan_ bothered to report that trip on his taxes. That he doesn't pay. 'Cause he doesn't exist."

"Bozer, our covers _do_ pay taxes." Jack had reclaimed the second half of his burger. "They have credit scores, and you can't have one of those without payin' bills, taxes, donatin' money to charity . . . don't tell me you forgot about Duke Jacoby's little run-in with Dixie already."

"Yeah, but we don't really." Bozer helped himself to the veggie tray. "It looks good on paper, but it's just accounting tricks. It's all a wash on the back end. Our covers don't cost the Phoenix more than a few hundred dollars a year."

"Per cover." Jack took a big bite, and tried to keep talking around it. "It affs uff."

Bozer frowned at him. "Fine. But Wilt Bozer's not committin' tax evasion."

"No, Wilt Bozer is an upstanding citizen," Mac agreed easily. "Who makes killer burgers. Pretty sure this recipe is proprietary, actually . . . and I'm not totally sure Mr. Lind actually gave you permission to see the entire recipe, let alone use it off Grind House premises . . ."

The look Bozer shot him was so full of hurt and betrayal that he couldn't help himself. Mac burst out laughing.

"Look," Boze tried again, his voice firm. "I'm just sayin'-"

"-that we're all a bunch of criminals and no better than the bad guys. Yeah, I hear you, dude." Jack wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'll be sure to feel extra guilty when Ethan's sittin' in that courtroom."

Bozer threw a baby carrot at him.

Mac sat back, taking a second to just enjoy the evening. His belly was full of burger – and frankly, he thought Bozer's tweaks to the original recipe topped a true Grind House burger with no contest – and a quiet evening in was the perfect end to a stressful day. Tomorrow morning, he was going to have to throw Luka Morrow back on, board a plane, and fly ten hours to Amsterdam. They'd have enough time to check into their hotel and confirm that court had followed schedule and they'd be on the stand, and the day after that –

The day after that was gonna suck.

A thought suddenly occurred to him, and Mac huffed out a quiet laugh. When he realized two sets of eyes were focused on him, Mac shook his head. "It's just . . . I think my covers have broken fewer laws than I have."

"Son of a drug dealer," Jack reminded him.

"Blew up our high school stadium," Bozer countered.

Jack started snapping his fingers. "Who was that guy . . . when we went undercover in the big house to get El Noche? The vault builder turned thief? Ooo, and the cat burglar who stole that stupid painting of blue ponies to get that Lemaire guy."

Bozer didn't bat an eye. "Manufactured napalm in chemistry class and . . . destroyed about half a million dollars in electrical grid infrastructure."

Jack stared across the fire pit at him, and Mac shrugged and took another swig of beer.

"Okay, what about the time you played Murdoc?"

Mac swallowed the beer and frowned. "I don't think we can count that as a cover identity so much as impersonating an existing criminal."

"Besides, there was that time he accidentally released chlorine gas on MIT's campus, and that sounds like something that psycho would do." Bozer somehow made that sound reasonable.

"But l'm in good company," and Mac gave his roommate a significant look. "Boze's past is not as pure as he'd like you to think."

Knowing the MIT reveal had taken things a bit too far, Bozer threw up his hands in immediate surrender. "Hey, I was a minor for almost alla those, so it doesn't count as a felony."

Mac scoffed. "Well, if that's the bar, then I was too-"

Across from them, Jack looked skeptical. "Whoa now, fellas. I ain't buyin' it. Him, yeah I can see a blatant disrespect for the rules and more'n'enough curiosity to kill a barnyard fulla cats. But you . . . what did _you_ do, a little shopliftin' back in the day?"

Wilt coughed. "Look, Jack. I know nobody around here seems to notice, but I am a black man, from a black family, livin' in a small town. It was bad enough that not only was my best friend the whitest, nerdiest, most awkward boy you know, he freakin' lived in my house part-time. I . . . got up to a li'l bit here and there for a year or two. Expanded my friend circle, if you know what I mean."

Jack actually looked a little surprised, and Mac nodded solemnly. "Yep. Right up until his dad caught wind of it."

Bozer gusted out a sigh. "Yeah, that wasn't pretty. Pops was _pissed_." He chuckled, then shook his head. "But it wasn't dad that pulled me outta that and straightened me up."

Mac intentionally took a sip of beer to avoid the look his best friend threw his way, but Bozer was undeterred, and caught him in a friendly headlock that made him choke.

"The whitest guy I knew reminded me who I really was, and that all I needed ta be was me."

Mac just nodded with a little cough, and Bozer gave him a couple slaps on the back. "Turns out the guy who punched a bully in the face really didn't wanna become a bully himself. And that, Jack, is when this genius fully blossomed into the film curator, director, and producer you know and love today."

"Yeah," Jack said, his tone making it obvious exactly what he thought about _that_. "Real Hallmark moment, I'm guessin'."

"Something like that," Mac rasped, and cleared this throat. "He was kinda bummed about being grounded for the rest of his natural life, so I made him a video camera."

"Well, yeah, I mean, what else could ya do?" Jack did a crappy job of hiding his smile, leaning back on his elbows. "Rehabilitated him from a life of crime. Oh, wait . . ."

Mac simpered at his partner. "You're not fooling anyone, Jack. I heard stories about Texas that make even the stadium incident pale in comparison. Something about a quiet little barn dance that resulted in what, almost a million dollars in damage to the local packing plant?"

Jack refused to acknowledge guilt, despite Bozer's sudden interest. "Look, all I'm hearin' is that we were apparently all doomed to be lawbreakers, so as long as we're workin' for the good guys, I call that a win."

Mac parsed that argument in his head. "Intention _does_ factor into certain legal decisions –"

"Dude, point that brain somewhere else for a second. Yeah, we break the law sometimes. But we don't hurt innocent people, most if not all the time we're helpin' people, and it's people who need the help. That ain't a crime. Not in my book."

They were quiet a moment. "That's a fine line," Bozer observed. "But y'know, some of the best stuff we've done broke at least a dozen laws."

The mission in Turkey notwithstanding, Mac couldn't argue with that. Saving Hector Leon in Ecuador was blatant interference by the US in the governing of another sovereign nation, which was enough to get you kicked out of the UN if it could be proven. The oil pipeline fire they put out in Nigeria was arguably the same, since it was meant to destabilize the government. Even smaller things, committing baseball fraud to square Elwood up with his bookie, breaking Jack out of prison in Yemen. All illegal. And all resulting in saving lives. Sometimes thousands, sometimes just one.

And Colonel Batuhan Aydin could argue he was doing exactly the same thing by trying to depose Erdogan.

"It is a fine line, Boze, and some of us walk it a little better than others." It came out in Jack's lecturing tone, but Mac didn't miss the way Jack sat back up and quickly finished off his beer. "And speakin' of walkin' the line, I'm gonna walk it straight to the fridge for a refill. Any other takers?"

That was a very unnecessary question – the answer was obviously yes - and Mac took the opportunity to grab a bag of Boze's 'secret recipe' caramel and chocolate popcorn, which was a dead ringer for dark chocolate Moose Munch, and pour it into a bowl. By the time he made it back outside, Bozer was turning off the grill, and Jack was standing at the rail, looking out over the side, holding two unopened bottles in his left hand.

Mac approached and helpfully snagged one, fishing his swiss army knife out of his pocket. "What'd you see? Paully make an appearance?"

Paully was what they called the Great Horned owl that had taken up residence on the steep cliffs and hillsides behind their neighborhood. Bozer had argued that the fluffy male was easily as large as a parrot, but distinctly Californian, and therefore a derivation of 'Polly' was wholly appropriate. Mac didn't really have a preference – if he had, he would probably have named the _Bubo virginianus_ something a bit more stately, like Descartes, or maybe Kaepora Gaebora.

Jack didn't immediately reply, and Mac popped the cap off the beer and set it on the railing beside Jack, grabbing the other from his partner. Jack didn't seem tense, but he was certainly alert, and Mac hesitated when he realized his partner was deliberately sweeping the area. Jack's right hand was empty and near his hip.

"Jack?"

". . . yeah."

Mac took his cue from the other man, scanning the darkness around them. The pool deck looked clean, the water undisturbed, and he didn't hear anything beyond the clanging of the grill lid as Bozer finished up. The trees were quiet, and a light breeze ruffling through the leaves created too much movement to easily spot any wildlife.

Jack absently picked up the beer beside him, giving the night another hard look.

"You got something?"

He shook his head, finishing his second scan. There was a slight frown on his face, but then he turned back to the deck, and it was immediately replaced with a grin. "You broke into the stash. Sweet."

"And salty," Bozer added as he crossed towards them, his own fresh beer in hand. "It's the perfect combination, and before you ask, no I didn't have Riley hack Harry and David's for the recipe, alright?"

Jack snorted, then glanced one more time over the deck railing before he started back for the fire pit. Mac put a light hand on his arm.

"What's up?"

"It's nothin'." His voice was an undertone. "Thought I saw somethin' out the kitchen window, and it's been a while since you know who paid us a visit."

Given that they'd been talking about an owl only moments ago, Mac was a little surprised Jack didn't go for the obvious Harry Potter tie-in. On more than one occasion he'd referred to Murdoc as Lord Voldemort, or He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

And he'd said his name earlier, on the deck, which Jack was now half-convinced was equivalent to a summoning spell.

"Gee, thanks for that reminder, Jack. I bet I sleep great tonight."

Jack winced a little. "Sorry, bud, I didn't even think about that-"

Mac waved him off and reclaimed his spot on the deck. "And I can confirm Boze's story, at least this time. He'd perfected this before we met Riley."

"Yeah. I'm sure she's found something a little more interesting to hack than a confectionary website." Bozer helped himself to the popcorn nut combo. "I'm thinkin' Truth or Dare gets a little more interesting at a hacker convention."

Jack's wince turned more into a grimace. "Speakin' of felonies, I wonder how many she's racked up in the last two days." He set his beer down and fished his phone out of his back pocket.

"Well, I guess in a couple days we'll find out." Bozer watched Jack a moment. "You know she told us she wasn't gonna text. Anything she sends us, or we send her, could get intercepted by a veritable sea of people just like Riley. Except they might use their powers for evil."

Jack frowned at his phone and tucked it back in his pocket. "Yeah, I suppose we will. And she knows where we'll be."

"Yes, we'll be in a room where smartphones are banned," Mac reminded his partner gently. "Which will give her . . ." He did some quick math. "Almost twelve hours to get her story straight before we hear it."

Boze snorted. "She won't need more than twelve minutes. That is one of the many ways Miss Riley Davis does _not_ take after Jack."

Mac chuckled- loudly – and Jack gave Bozer a wounded look. "I represent that remark."

About thirty yards away, a nearly invisible shape finally dared to move, and slipped with a controlled, deliberate slowness back behind the trunk of a large pine. The readout on his com device was a dim green, invisible from their distance, and he typed a brief message.

PRIMARY TARGET NOT YET ISOLATED

Not to be outdone, his teammate also sent out an update.

SECONDARY TARGET RESIDENCE CONFIRMED AWAITING ORDERS

-M-

It took a very long time to wake up.

For a while, her world was reduced to an aching throat and a pain in her head. _Drank too much_. Or maybe caught a cold? She shifted herself only enough to ease the discomfort, to fall back asleep, but it seemed like it only lasted a breath, and then there was pain again.

Eventually she realized she was lying on something hard, which wasn't helping matters at all, and the blanket was over her face. She left her eyes closed, swiping groggily at her nose, but the fabric seemed wrapped around her pretty snuggly. Riley pried open her eyes and they were drawn to the bare bulb on the ceiling.

It looked small, like a specialty lightbulb from Ikea, and she stared at it for a while, trying to decide if the bulb really was small, or the ceiling was far away.

Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled. An undulating male voice rose up immediately after, faintly but clearly, with a tinny quality that told her it was being amplified. His chant was Eastern, melodic and beautiful, and she lay on the floor, staring at the light bulb, just listening. The chanter would only pause long enough to take breath before he started again, and even after he was finished, his song seemed to ring in the air for a long time.

Gradually she picked out other sounds – the indistinct chatter of people. Cars passing. Chimes. A dog barked.

It kinda sounded like the background of an Indiana Jones movie.

 _Must've left the TV on._

Riley let her head roll to the left, looking for the offending device, and blank, beige walls met her gaze. No TV. No furniture. No window. No source of natural light.

She turned her head the other direction, finding exactly the same thing. Nondescript first person shooter videogame walls.

And why was she thinking about first person shooters?

Riley blinked, still more annoyed than afraid, and felt the fabric on her face shift again. Irritably, she tugged at it, and she felt it move around her head as she pulled what felt like a ninja mask off her nose and mouth and let it bunch under her chin. A hand on her forehead found more of the fabric was there, covering her head, and when she caught sight of her hand, she saw she was wearing long sleeves, and her thumb was shoved through the side of the sleeve, so that it partially covered the back of her hand as well.

It wasn't thick, like a turtleneck. It was silkier than that, and it was a flat black.

Riley dropped her hand back to her chest, finding what felt like a second shirt over the long-sleeved shirt, and then she swallowed a bitter taste out of her mouth, and tried to sit up.

It took a long time to do that, too.

When she finally managed it, she found she was in a floor-length black dress, not terribly form-fitting nor uncomfortable. She could feel that she had something on under it, shorts and a tank top maybe? It was hard to sit up, and the distant feeling wasn't going away.

That was when her brain finally caught on.

 _Drugged._

She was drugged. Pretty heavily.

When she was stable enough, Riley glanced around the room, still more irritated than anything else. The space was small. Maybe enough room to fit a queen sized bed and a dresser, but not much else. The floor was sheets of particleboard that had been sealed over with the same paint that was everywhere else. A narrow door adorned one wall, with no doorknob visible, and that wall jogged into the room, taking up at least a third of the total space. She figured it must be a closet, or maybe the bathroom.

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she realized she needed to use one. Urgently.

Getting to her feet wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. She didn't lack strength, just coordination. The walls were solid and helped her steer, and as she approached the doorway she saw that it was indeed a bathroom. It was tiny, barely six feet deep, and yet somehow managed to contain a sink, a toilet, and a corner shower. There was no door, on either the room or the shower. No light. No toilet paper. No towel. Not even soap, just a small beige cup on the sink.

Riley didn't care. The toilet was Western style, the bowl contained water, and it flushed. She didn't sweat the lack of toilet paper, in fact she barely managed to get the form-fitting black shorts off before it was too late. Once she was done, she tried the sink, and the cold water tap worked just fine.

There was a shallow, rectangular indention in the wall above the sink, as if a mirror had once been there, but now there was nothing but the same beige paint that was everywhere else. On the floors, on the ceiling. Even on the tiles in the bathroom. It looked like the room had been bathed in it.

Riley watched the water splash into the sink, and realized just how thirsty she was. The water didn't smell strange, but she still paced herself, only filling the small cup halfway. She took a sip, and the water tasted _amazing._ She savored another sip, then set the cup on the sink and forced herself to walk away, back into the room. If she didn't feel sick in half an hour, she would let herself drink the rest.

The last thing she needed was Montezuma's revenge to go with whatever the fuck this was.

Her mental Mac and Jack started to kick in not too much later. Assess your surroundings. Touch things. Look at things.

Listen.

The room was completely empty. The paint was thick; she couldn't even tease a splinter out of the particleboard floor. The cabinet under the sink was locked, but the toilet flushed and the showerhead worked, albeit weakly. Water pressure wasn't great. There was no hot water, but the cold water wasn't terribly cold. The bulb in the ceiling was definitely smaller than normal.

She discovered she was wearing a traditional niqab, and a kind of tunic over the dress. Her feet were bare. Besides the form-fitting shorts, she was wearing a surprisingly normal sportswear tank top with support built in. Not a stitch of clothing was her own. She pulled off the headscarf and niqab, and her hair was bound with a single rubber band – an actual rubber band. No bobby pins. No earrings. No necklace. No rings.

Riley started to feel sick, but she didn't think it was the water.

Pressing her ear to the wooden door got her nothing. Sometimes she heard footsteps, but not frequently, and not close by. As if someone in the apartment above or below hers was moving around. There was always the sound of chatter, of traffic, but it was distant. The walls were thick. Sometimes she heard a car horn, a shout, the squeal of brakes needing maintenance.

Somewhere, a bell – or maybe a gong? – tolled, and the undulating chant was broadcast again.

Riley tried the door, which didn't budge. The hinges were exposed, but without any kind of tool it did her no good. She banged on it a few times, tentatively at first, then like she meant it, but nothing happened. No footsteps. No answering voice.

No one came.

Riley drank the rest of her cup of water, and finally, her throat started to feel just a little better.

After that, there was nothing left to do. The pacing made her tired; soon enough she curled up in the corner furthest from the door, and managed to fall asleep.

The door didn't make any noise when it opened. That was what she learned next.

A male voice shouted at her, sounding both startled and furious, and Riley jolted awake. The door was open, and light was coming in from the narrow hallway outside. Most of it was blocked by a very large, deeply tanned man in desert-patterned BDUs. He had taken a step into the room, but averted his eyes, and then shouted something else. It sounded like a curse.

Riley swallowed her heart back into her chest. The language was familiar, she'd heard it before-

The man gestured sharply at her discarded niqab, and shouted again. This time a command.

His meaning was clear. _Put that back on!_

She hoped her meaning was just as clear when she replied – loudly - in English. "Go fuck yourself."

The soldier exhaled audibly, then shot her a quick glare, turned on the heels of his military-style boots, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Before he did, she noticed that it had an actual doorknob on the other side. What she had seen of the hallway was also beige, and across it she thought she'd seen another door, just as narrow as hers.

Riley shakily pulled herself to her feet, sure the encounter wasn't over, and she was right. The door was pushed open again in less than a minute, without warning, and a woman dressed much as she was – but with a purple scarf covering her niqab – quickly entered the room. The door was pulled shut behind her by an invisible hand, and she glanced down at the floor, where Riley had discarded the headwear. When the woman looked back up, her brown eyes flashed in annoyance.

"You will wear this!" she shouted throatily, in accented English, and gestured at the headscarf.

"The hell I will," Riley snapped. "Who are you? Where am I? What do you want!"

The woman hissed at her – actually hissed, with a sibilant sss sound – and gathered up the fabric. She hurried towards Riley, who backed as far into the corner as she could before she was forced to stand her ground. The woman moved to throw the fabric over her head, and Riley blocked her, knocking it out of her hand. As quick as a snake, the woman struck her across the face, a hard, open-palmed slap.

Riley was shocked more than she was hurt; she blocked the woman's attempt at a followup. "Don't touch me!" she snarled, shoving the other woman back, so that she almost tripped over her own skirt. When the Muslim woman looked at her again, her brown eyes were narrowed with rage.

"Stupid girl!" she spat. "You will wear this or you will be beaten!"

Riley bared her teeth. "I'm not putting that back on until you answer my questions." Which was a lie; she wasn't going to put it back on even if the woman told her everything she wanted to know.

"Little fool," the woman growled. "You do not make the rules here."

And with that, she turned and stalked back across the tiny room to the door. She knocked twice, gently, and then backed up, and the door opened. The woman ducked her head, and had a very soft conversation with someone Riley couldn't see.

Then she flitted out of the room, and the soldier came back in. That was about the time Riley realized where she'd heard the language before.

It was Turkish. She'd heard it over the comms when Saito and John Tunne went undercover into Batuhan Aydin's recruitment center.

This time the man didn't avoid looking her in the eye. He glared at her contemptuously, and pointed at the pile of black fabric. His meaning was crystal clear.

It was a Turkish soldier. Jack and Mac were due in the Netherlands –

Another weak surge of adrenaline hit as it finally dawned on her. They had no idea where she was.

She'd been taken from the convention. Wasn't due to check in for days. They might not even know she was _missing_ , let alone –

And the odds that this _wasn't_ related to Colonel Aydin's trial were slim to none.

Riley looked back down at the fabric. If these were the men who'd had Mac, then –

Then she needed to get out of here right fucking now.

Haltingly, Riley stepped forward, keeping her eyes downcast. She bent and picked up the scarf, finding a stitched edge with her fingers as she straightened, and then she threw the fabric in his face, and lunged the rest of the distance between them, driving a knee right into his groin.

He hadn't been expecting it and she heard him shout with pain, falling back. He was wearing a holster but he didn't have a gun; Riley hit him with a jab and a right cross as he tore the fabric off his face. He stumbled back another several steps, almost going down, and she aimed a kick at his chest, intending to send him into the hallway.

Unfortunately, she was wearing a dress. And it wasn't quite roomy enough.

The fabric only let her get the kick up just past his waist, and the soldier caught her heel. Once he had it, he twisted, and Riley twisted with him to prevent him from breaking her ankle. The loose fabric bunched up around her legs as she went down, so she rolled to try to keep out of reach, but the room was so small, and she had nowhere to go. Riley scrambled to her hands and knees but a foot came down on the hem of the dress, stopping her in her tracks, and a hand caught her ponytail and hauled her back into his chest.

It was a hold she knew, and she reflexively stomped down on his instep, but she was barefoot and he was in boots; all she managed to do was skin the side of her foot. He was breathing hard, growling on every exhale, and his arms tightened around her in a bear hug. She tried to base and space but he was far too strong, he simply picked her up off the ground and started squeezing.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

He crushed the air out of her lungs almost effortlessly, and for the first time in her life, Riley felt her ribs actually creak with the pressure. It was terrifyingly strong. He held her like that for what seemed like an eternity, and when darkness started to creep into her peripheral vision, he finally hurled her straight into the wall.

Riley felt the impact everywhere, but nowhere more strongly than her head, and she was dimly aware that she'd fallen to the floor. Pain exploded in her stomach, more than she'd ever felt before, and Riley retched. She couldn't breathe. Steel fingers hauled her up by the front of her dress, grabbing as much flesh as they did fabric, and Riley opened her eyes just in time to see the backhand coming.

There was more pain, pain in her arm, someone was tearing it off, and no matter how hard she tried, Riley just couldn't seem to pass out.

-M-

Mac's eyes opened of their own accord, and the glowing digits on the clock declared the time to be 1:23 AM.

The end of a deep sleep period and the beginning of a REM cycle. The hour between one and two am was an old friend, and MacGyver lay quite still, just waiting. Sometimes it was a sound. Sometimes a hand would close around his bicep, or slip over his mouth. Sometimes he wouldn't realize he was dreaming, and think he was awake.

Sometimes he would sit up, and throw back the sheet to get out of bed for a piss and a glass of water.

Sometimes he would close his eyes and try to go back to sleep.

It didn't really matter. What happened next was always the same.

Mac stared at the clock, waiting for the numbers to shift. For the three to become a four.

It never happened. He could stare at the alarm clock for an hour and it would never change. He was always trapped in the same instant he woke, until he moved. Until he looked.

And given the events of the past few days, all the memories he'd been forced to re-examine . . . if he was honest with himself, he'd almost been expecting it.

There was a quiet metallic click, near the foot of his bed, and Mac braced himself. Then he pulled himself up on his elbows, and he looked.

The windows in the room he'd chosen as his bedroom – mainly because it had the attached master bathroom – were concentrated towards the corner, overlooking the deck on one side and the side yard on the other. They let in a lot of light, and he almost never pulled the shades. It made the dark silhouette at the end of the bed terribly obvious.

Usually his shadow was by the bedroom door, where there was less direct light. Where the outline of the Turk was softer, harder to discern. Made him really study the darkness while the fear welled up from deep within his stomach.

This time the image was sharp and clear. And this time, his shadow – the man who had interrogated him for weeks, overseen his drug therapy, found and exploited his every weakness - was holding a gun.

The Turk cocked his head to the side. "Hello, American. You look well."

And like it did every time, panic bubbled up inside him.

 _It's just a nightmare. He's not really there_.

. . . and yet, Mac could actually _smell_ him. The distinctive combination of allspice and paprika from Turkish cooking. Chlorophyll, as if he'd just come inside from the woods. Gun oil, a scent he normally associated with Jack.

"Remain still. If you wake Bozer, I'll have no choice but to kill him."

His shadow _never_ threatened Bozer. Usually it was like the rest of the house didn't exist, there was never anyone there but the two of them.

Mac stared at him a second, twisting his fingertips into the sheets, counting the stitches in the material. When he truly believed he was awake in a dream, it was always so hard to tell. "You're not really here." His voice was perfectly steady.

His shadow was silent a long moment. "Have I been here before?"

Always a question, though. When they spoke in his dreams, it was always an interrogation.

Mac pushed himself up a little straighter, and the gun rose in response. The gun . . . he couldn't ever remember his shadow having a gun.

Maybe it was a new twist. Maybe the Turk would hand it to him. Maybe that's how this dream was going to end.

"It seems that I have been. Good." The Turk's left hand flicked, and something too large to be a blade sailed towards him. It fell short, landing with a soft thump on his legs, and Mac flinched as he very clearly felt it strike him.

"Someone wants to speak with you."

It was his phone.

Mac stared at it a long second, then glanced at the nightstand, where his actual phone sat charging, as it did every night. They were the same. Same model, same faux wood back panel, same bumper case.

Adrenaline dumped into his system, and MacGyver dug his thumbnail into the pad of his index finger until he felt the skin split.

And he didn't wake up.

His shadow stood there, silently, at the foot of his bed. And waited.

Mac was frankly stunned his voice was still so steady, so calm when he heard himself speak. "No."

The figure at the foot of his bed gave him a moment to reconsider, and when he didn't, the man exhaled softly. "The longer you disobey, the more she suffers."

No. He wasn't playing this game. "You died. A year ago."

Sergeant Kadir Hakan, one of the Aydin's _Bordo Bereliler_ – Turkish special forces – had been killed in NATO's attack on Aydin's manor. His entire team had died with him. Lieutenant Kenan Yavuz, the team's leader. Second Lieutenant Yasin Cenk, their medic. Major Salih Oguzhan, their sniper, who had died only days prior after killing four Phoenix agents at the villa –

They were all dead. Aydin's team of Maroon Berets were all dead.

Except Hakan's identity had never been confirmed. The body was burned beyond recognition, and all the Maroon Beret's permanent records – including fingerprints and dental records - had been destroyed in an attempt to prevent positive identification. The remains found in that bombed out vehicle had been the right gender, the right height, the right weight, the right age, the right blood type.

All of the survivors of NATO's strike had been photographed, and Mac had reviewed every one of them. They were in prison, awaiting trials of their own. There hadn't been so much as a whisper of any of Aydin's original men active, not since the attack on the manor.

Hakan was dead.

"Yes. A man lies dead with my name over him. It is an insult, but not the greatest one against him. Pick up the phone, American. She waits for you."

Mac digested that, then glanced back at the clock.

1:25 AM

. . . the clock _never_ moved. Not in any of the dreams had the time ever advanced.

Without any other choice, Mac leaned forward and fished the phone out of the sheets. His thumb found the power button easily, and the screen came to life with his background photo. His presets, the notification bar exactly the way he'd configured it. He swiped right, and the keypad lock popped up.

He looked back up at the Turk. In answer, the man simply gestured.

Either they'd already cloned his phone, or he was being asked to reveal his pin.

Mac glared at him steadily.

The Turk sighed. "It is eight squared six squared, American. Is that not correct?"

. . . it was. Which meant his phone was already cloned.

He entered his pin – 6436 – and the phone silently unlocked. A video call was underway, and Mac rotated the phone, then dragged the minimized call down from the system bar.

His bedroom was still quite dark, and the phone's brightness was more than enough to show him detail despite the relative gloom of the image. There was no mistaking it.

He was looking at Riley Davis.

The image was of her head and the top of her shoulders. She was lying on something flat, tilted towards the camera, and her eyes were loosely squeezed shut. The visible flesh of her face and lips was both swollen and slack, and the light – coming from above her – highlighted marked distention over her left cheekbone. The part of her face in the light glistened with sweat – or tears – and then her body was shifted by a blow.

It was then that whoever was on the other side of the phone chose to unmute it. The phone's speakers were set low, but the room was utterly quiet, and the sounds of Riley's breath, and her voice, were clear. She _was_ crying, inarticulately. Barely conscious.

He tore his eyes away from the screen. "Stop this. Now!"

This wasn't a dream.

The silhouette at the foot of his bed made no move to pick up a phone, or any other communication device. "Quiet, American. Do not wake your friend."

Bozer.

He'd said that if they woke Bozer, he was going to kill him.

Mac heard the hiss of fabric moving, and he dropped his eyes back to the phone. She'd been struck again, and a whimper swelled in Riley's throat.

The phone creaked in his grip, and Mac was barely able to keep his voice at speaking volume. "What do you want?"

"You are due to testify at the Hague tomorrow. You will use that opportunity to free Colonel Aydin, and you will ensure that he remains that way for the next seventy-two hours."

A prison break.

He didn't even need to think about it. "Only if you let her go, right now."

Across from him, the Turk tsked. "This is not a negotiation, American. The woman is ours. She will continue to suffer as long as the colonel suffers."

As if whoever was on the other end of the call could hear him – and they probably could – Riley's body was jerked to the side, and her face crumpled weakly. She probably wasn't aware enough to recognize his voice, and it was too dark for her to see his face, even if her eyes had been open.

She thought she was alone.

"If you want to end her suffering, help the colonel. Once he is free and unharmed, she will be released."

Five days. Today he would fly to the Netherlands, tomorrow he would testify, and even if he somehow managed to spirit Aydin out of the Hague, and eluded the massive law enforcement response for the next three days –

She'd still be with them for five days.

How in the _hell_ had they found her? If the Phoenix didn't know where Riley was, how could they have done it, and from Turkey -

It was a grey hat convention. A hacker convention.

The hacker that had tried to access Phoenix systems, that had gotten past Riley's defenses and accessed their agents' phones, that had broken into Raytheon's network, that had never been caught. If Riley had seen some evidence of that person, pursued them –

And the convention happened at the same time every year. Riley had attended it regularly before she was arrested, it wouldn't be a stretch for someone to anticipate she'd try to attend this year.

They could have gotten her two days ago. She could be anywhere in the world by now.

Mac's eyes dropped back to the phone. There were no clues in frame. The wall behind her appeared a nondescript beige, there wasn't so much as a lightswitch or power outlet in view. Her shirt was black, hiding any blood or other injuries. Tendrils of hair had crept over her face and neck, but the majority was tucked away behind her, in a style he'd never seen her wear.

"And I'm supposed to take your word for that?" Mac had no doubt whatsoever; once the colonel was freed, they were going to kill Riley. They had nothing to gain by letting her go.

He had five days to find her, or she was going to die.

Mac heard a quiet sound of amusement. "Have you forgotten our time together? I do not lie, American. Not like you."

Finally, there was some emotion in his dry tone, and Mac tried to focus on him, make out his expression. The Turk had his back to the windows, shadowing his face, and the light from the phone had ruined Mac's night vision.

"You assured me you worked for scholars, that they were no threat to the colonel. That was a lie. Since you have proven yourself to be a deceiver, it is your word that is untrustworthy, not mine. So hear me. If you betray us to your colleagues, if you speak or act in a way that demonstrates you are not cooperating in good faith, I will know. And when that happens, she will bear your punishment."

He gestured to the phone with the gun, and it was perfectly steady.

"You will keep that device on you, fully functional, at all times. You will place it so that one of the two cameras is always exposed and recording what is happening around you. If I see a gesture, if I hear a word that makes me doubt your intentions for even a moment, I will consider our agreement broken. Then she loses her purpose, and becomes no more valuable to me than any other woman."

Whoever was on the other side of the video call had apparently paused to listen, and the only sound from the phone was quiet crying.

"I won't kill her, American. She will travel with the men, into places far away from your drones and invisible to your satellites. Perhaps we will break her, and she will become our ally. Perhaps not, and I will send you the severed heads of her children. When at last a full year goes by with no message, only then you will know that her suffering has finally ended, and her body left to the sand and the creatures. Do you understand?"

No malice. A simple inquiry, awaiting his confirmation. Just as Hakan had asked it, so many times in that root cellar.

And he understood. Perfectly.

Mac unclenched his jaw. " . . . yes."

"You will find schematics for the courthouse in the phone. Do not change a single configuration setting. If anyone attempts to tamper with or track the phone, our agreement will be broken. If anyone discovers or questions what you are doing, our agreement will be broken. You will receive instructions via text, and you will respond promptly. Anything that happens to the colonel from this point forward, even if it is outside your control, will be inflicted upon her."

"I said I understand." It came out more of a growl than Mac had intended, and he tried to take the edge off as he continued. "I'll do what you want. You don't need to keep hurting her."

The Turk made a disappointed sound. "You still do not listen well, American. Her suffering ends when the colonel's does, and even now he suffers alone in a prison cell. When he is free, she will be free."

In his hands, he heard the sound of a door closing, and he looked down at the phone in time to see Riley flinch a little. Then the video call disconnected.

"You may initiate calls to this number once a day as proof of life. Do you have any questions?"

. . . besides how the hell he was going to get Colonel Aydin out of a courtroom full of people and security, let alone out of the building, without telling Matty – or Jack – what he was doing? And track down Riley without being able to tell Jill what he had her looking for, and without tipping off Hakan or his people?

Hakan interpreted his hesitation correctly. "Pass me your old phone. Slowly."

Haltingly, Mac complied, reaching over to his nightstand, and the Turk approached him on that side, gun still trained on him. Shooting him would certainly be counterintuitive if they truly wanted his help, but Mac had a feeling he'd only be wounded.

And that the Turk was deadly serious when he said he would kill Bozer.

Mac disconnected the power cable with two fingers, and passed his phone to the other man. He was sitting up in his bed, sheets still over his legs, and he had no hope of either tackling or disarming Hakan before the soldier could incapacitate him.

Once he had the phone, he backed off, powering it down. "Do not forget; the phone remains with you at all times. If you allow the battery to die, if you so much as cross to the next room without it, our agreement is broken."

With that, he walked to the bedroom door, the one that led to the house. "Sleep if you can. I'll see you in Amsterdam, Angus MacGyver."

Then he left, closing the door gently behind him, and the house fell into silence.

-M-

So that escalated quickly. In summary – one of Aydin's men survived after all, and he's going to do whatever it takes to get his commanding officer out of prison. Riley – and now Mac - are in deep caca. And an as of yet unidentified person is also being targeted.


	3. Chapter 3

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

"Are you actually going to wear that?"

It wasn't meant as the question it seemed at face value. Of course he was going to wear that, he was already wearing it. The question was intended more as a statement of her disapproval.

Because black tac pants and a maroon tee were probably very comfortable, but also screamed ex-military, among other things.

And Ethan Darby was not ex-military. He didn't even have a carry permit. She'd checked and made sure Jack hadn't requested one get created. And then made a note that her analysts were to deny the request if they received it.

Jack glanced down at himself, his brow furrowed, and then gave his shirt a quick sniff. ". . . pretty sure they're clean . . ."

Matty put her hands on her hips and pondered which of the many glares in her arsenal would be appropriate. Apparently resting bitch face was sufficient, though, because he looked back at her and shrugged.

"Ethan's a photographer, Matty. Photographs wear cargo pants."

She made a face. "Those aren't cargo pants, Jack."

He grinned and took a seat on the armrest of one of the chairs. "You know that, and I know that, but most people can't tell the difference. Besides, cargo pants are just crappy knock-off tactical pants anyway, and Ethan Darby is a man who appreciates quality in his tools."

She raised her eyebrows. "Well, he needs to start appreciating that he won't have a salary to enjoy said tools if he doesn't have a _job_. And it seems like this isn't the first conversation we've had about your inability to select the right pants."

But Jack was chuckling. "That's not where I thought you'd go with that, good redirect."

"Redirect from what? The gutter?" Truth be told, she'd considered making a tool joke. "Some of us matured past high school, Jack. I know it's hard, but do you think you could pretend to be a grown up now?"

His grin spread momentarily wider, but the second half of her second sentence successfully headed him off at the pass, and she was spared any quip by the arrival of Luka Morrow.

"Nice of you to join us, Mac."

She hadn't taken all the sour out of her tone, and his next stride faltered a little as he read the room. Jack hadn't done much to wipe the stupid grin off his face, which gave Blondie all the clue-in he needed. Mac shot his partner a subtle smirk, then closed the door and fished his phone out of his pocket to check the time.

She beat him to it. "You know, it seems to me that eight am arrives at the same time every day, always exactly an hour after seven am."

He confirmed the time himself with a little wince. "Sorry, Matty. I was just . . ." He trailed off when it became obvious to him that she didn't care what his excuse was, and then he cleared his throat, and slipped the phone into his front pocket as he helped himself to a few paperclips.

"Well, now that we're all finally here – for the most part," and she shot another glare at Jack, "- let's start by you assuring me that you've thought through every angle, every line of questioning, and every possible flaw in your stories."

"Oo, I got one." Jack even raised his hand. She stared at him without blinking and he patiently waited for her to call on him.

They were literally two of the top agents not just in the Phoenix, or even just the US, but in the intelligence world as a whole. And apparently neither of them had matured past the age of ten. At least Mac actually looked the part. He glanced over his shoulder at Jack inquiringly, then back at her, and then he respectfully stopped messing with the paperclips.

"Ethan and Luka had actual face to face interactions with Colonel Aydin, and we're the only two Americans directly involved with the case against him. I think it's likely that out of the hundred or so witnesses, we _will_ be cross examined. They'll try to discredit the testimony by suggesting that we didn't really see the colonel himself, and we never actually heard him directly order the executions, or Luka's imprisonment."

And torture. She didn't miss the omission, or the ever so slight shadow under Mac's eyes that told her he was short several hours of sleep.

"I agree. What are you going to do about it?"

"Be very explicit in our testimony. If we can drive those points home, putting the same question to us during cross would weaken the defense."

Which would probably be exactly the coaching they were going to get from the prosecution before either of them took the stand. "Sounds like a plan. Hermione, put your hand down."

Jack obeyed, looking crestfallen, and she rolled her eyes. "Do you have something actually relevant to add to this conversation?"

"Well, actually, Bozer does."

Mac turned his head a little, catching Jack in his peripheral vision, but he seemed content to let Jack continue.

"He reminded us last night that we did sort of get an invitation to not go back to Amsterdam for, you know, the rest of our lives."

She hadn't overlooked that either. "I don't know what you're referring to, Agent Dalton. You four were never in Amsterdam, in fact you and Mac haven't been to the Netherlands in years. As for the Militaire Inlichtingen-en Veiligheidsdienst -"

"Gesundheit."

Mac's lips quirked. "That's German, Jack, not Dutch."

"Oh, uh, _recht_."

The blond's expression shifted from amused to faintly pained. "That's right, meaning the direction, right or left, if you meant to say 'correct' it would actually be ' _richtig_ ' . . ."

She continued to stare at them, silently, until they both subsided.

"Thank you, Professor. May I continue?"

Mac dipped his head apologetically. His fingers had started fiddling with the paperclips again.

" _Wunderbar_. As I was saying, there is no record, official or otherwise, of any of you in Amsterdam in the last two years, and Luka and Ethan have clean records. You shouldn't attract any attention from local law enforcement or Dutch intelligence. That being said," she added darkly, "do not, under _any_ circumstances, blow up any more of Amsterdam."

While the Deputy Director of Dutch Intelligence had been impressed with them – and willing to sweep everything under the rug when she'd explained the situation – she was fairly sure he wouldn't approve of US intelligence agents testifying undercover at a tribunal of the level of importance of the Hague. It was bad enough she had to make nice with the State Department and send them there at all, complications were the _very_ last thing they needed.

And as much as they were making light of it, she knew that was Mac's coping mechanism, and Jack was going to indulge him. They had this buttoned down.

"Well, I mean, unless another member of Dutch Parliament gets blackmailed into trying to set off another bomb in front of a café."

Even Mac turned and gave his partner a look.

Matty just shook her head. "No Jack. In that case, I'd expect you to notify local law enforcement. And don't you _dare_ call that model that Bryce Villanova ghosted last year."

Jack's eyebrows shot up, like it hadn't occurred to him. Matty wasn't impressed.

"Oh, don't worry about that, Matty. Apparently that call he made after we got back put a _permanent_ end to Bryce's chances with Genevieve." Mac had finished up with his first paperclip, and moved on to the second, ignoring his partner's wounded look.

"Now that's not completely true, and besides, what do you know about it?"

Mac glanced up. "Riley was standing right next to you."

"Well, yeah, but she only heard my half of the conversation –"

Mac scoffed. "Pretty sure most of the hallway could hear Genevieve's half."

"Be that as it may," she interrupted, before they could keep going, "I expect you both on your best behavior. If I hear anything to the contrary, I'm going to disavow you. _Again_. And I'll make it stick this time."

"Yes ma'am," Mac murmured contritely.

Her eyes slid past him, to where Jack was still pouting on the chair, and he inclined his head. "Got it. No trips to the coffee house. Or is it the coffeeshops? I get them confused."

Mac tilted his head, fiddling with some detail in the sculpture he was making. "Depends. Are you looking for caffeine or cannabis?"

"Why not both?" Jack asked, in what he probably thought was a reasonable tone of voice.

"If you fail your next drug screening, it's on you. You're wheels up in two hours. And for god's sake, change your pants." She turned her back on them to grab her tablet, effectively ending the briefing. There was the quiet rumble of good-natured joking behind her, then the door opened, and she turned back to the room, watching Jack breeze out. Mac was on his heels. As he passed the chair that Jack had been straddling, he casually tossed his sculptures onto its wide armrest, and let his hand trail up to the back, which he patted twice as he left.

At nearly the same time, her tablet dinged.

Matty glanced at the alert – the team in Paraguay had just made contact with their target – and she waited a moment while the video feed came up. There wasn't much to see; they were hiding behind some shipping crates, and the vest-mounted camera showed the top quarter of a silver four-door and an equally sleek, bald head.

Javier Mencosa was in for a bad day.

While they waited for his buyer to show, Matty glanced back at the chair. Mac frequently abandoned his little creations in the War Room, but usually not by using them to boobytrap the furniture. Nor did he typically draw attention to doing so. Curious, she crossed the room and picked them up.

One was a fedora. The other was a crescent moon, with a little arm sticking off the bottom tip of the moon, leading to a surprisingly small five-pointed star.

The symbol of the Turkish flag.

That he'd have Turkey on the brain didn't surprise her in the least. What did surprise her was a small amount of blood on the star – where he'd obviously poked his finger trying to get the metal to bend. The hat was a little less obvious. Maybe Indiana Jones?

There was a little blood on the hat, as well.

Matty stared at them a moment more, then glanced out the clear glass wall of the War Room. Jack and Mac were long gone, but Bozer had just turned the corner, and he happened to glance her way. She waved him in.

He hit the door smiling. "Good morning, Matty," he greeted her cheerfully. "What can I do for this fine _hump daaaay_?"

She smiled despite herself; Bozer's happiness was naturally infectious. "I was just wondering, did something happen with Mac yesterday?"

His eyebrows shot up, and some of the smile faded as he thought. "Uh . . . no? We stayed in, Jack came over and we did burgers and beer. I mean, Mac was gone by the time I got up this morning, but I figured he had some loose ends to tie up. And . . . maybe didn't sleep so well last night . . ."

She'd already seen the evidence of that. "Well, that must be it." She smiled, more to put Bozer at ease than because she was pleased. "Are the prosthetics going to be ready for the Paris mission?"

The smile reappeared. "Oui oui, patron magnifique. Le travail exquis . . ." Then he frowned a little. "I need to work more on my French."

She pursed her lips. "Ce n'était pas mauvais." _Not bad_. "Thank you, Bozer."

He gave her a little bow. "But of course." His French on English accent was actually better than his straight French. Then he spun on his heels and paraded himself out the door.

She turned back to the tablet, minimizing the op window and pulling up the building security dashboard. She tapped the Access Logs icon, then started typing 'MacGyver' until the cursor highlighted the correct individual. The log started with the most recent badge access and worked its way down.

Before he'd come up to the briefing, he'd been down in Lab B2, for almost an hour. Prior to that he'd visited Robotics, but he'd started his morning in his own lab.

A little after three am.

He'd kept some truly weird hours during the worst of his insomnia – frankly most of her science staff did, on a fairly regular basis – so it wasn't abnormal enough to be flagged by their automated user behavior analytics as unusual.

Matty glanced again at the paperclips. The Turkish flag, and a hat.

And blood. His fingers were far too nimble, and too experienced, to slice themselves on the sharp end of a paperclip.

The double pat on the chair. He wanted her to find them.

Matty rewound the conversation in her head. He'd been down to business but playful with Jack, no significant looks, no double meanings in his words that she could tease out. Certainly none of the codewords that would signal he was in any kind of distress. And Jack obviously hadn't picked up anything either.

She glanced up at the ceiling, trying to determine if the surveillance cameras in the room would have had a blind spot near the chair. Did he think he was being observed? Riley could tell her if-

Well, she could if she wasn't at the –

Grey hat conference.

Matty glanced at the hat again. The fedora was a symbol for a particular flavor of Linux. Red Hat.

The Turkish flag, and Riley.

And blood.

Matty exited the War Room, leaving the paperclips where they were, and swept around it to the collaboration room where analysts involved in ongoing ops worked. She kept her voice casual.

"Liz, do me a favor and let Riley know we have to pull her for the Paris op."

The brunette analyst looked up, taking a second to adjust her focus from the task Matty had just interrupted. "Yes ma'am. Oh, but ma'am, she's at a tech conference –"

"I'm well aware." Matty used her 'patient' voice. "And she left us a means of leaving her a voicemail if we needed to pull her back. We do. Have her give you the location of the nearest airport to her, and arrange transportation. She needs to be back here in four hours."

Matty had a pretty good idea where Riley was – the conference's top location picks had been Atlanta and Las Vegas, it was stateside this year and Matty would have denied the request if it hadn't been. However, Riley didn't have her usual phone on her, which made texting her difficult, and she couldn't very well task her analysts with running facial rec at every upscale hotel in both cities without tipping off some of the attendees – and potentially someone more dangerous.

Someone with ties to Turkey. Which meant ties to Aydin.

But that still didn't explain why Mac had gone to such lengths to get her attention. "Has there been any suspicious activity on our network in the past week or so?"

Lisa blinked back up at her. "I . . . I don't know, but I can check the logs-"

"Do it. I want your report in fifteen minutes."

-M-

He adjusted the backlit magnifier, using an eyeglass frame screwdriver to tease the wires into place, and on the bench beside him, his phone vibrated.

Mac glared at the screen when it lit. It was a text.

 **Insert the USB stick into the computer on your right.**

His eyes slid to the machine in question. He was in one of the engineering labs, so that tower was not airgapped, it was plugged into the internal Phoenix network, and had serious processing power.

He glanced back at the phone, and the tiny black lens that made up the phone's user-facing camera. "That machine's on our internal network," he muttered aloud. "It'll scan the drive automatically and trigger an alarm. You'll be caught."

Which was why he wasn't doing what he was doing in his own lab. He'd picked Ryker's, he knew the Swiss physicist was visiting his aging parents in Drättehorn.

The screen auto-dimmed when it didn't sense any user input, and Mac stared at the black glass for a moment. Just when he was beginning to turn back to his project, it vibrated again.

 **Do as you are instructed.**

Mac grit his teeth. He wasn't lying about the USB stick being auto-read the moment he plugged it in. And he knew whatever was on it wasn't good, since it was his own drive, and he'd copied the files he'd been instructed to onto it before he left the house. He knew why Hakan hadn't just prepped it and given it to him – he was creating an evidence trail. Which meant that when whatever it was infected the Phoenix network, it would be traced back to him, bringing it onto the premises, and his own personal laptop at home.

Not that there was going to be any question about his guilt by tomorrow afternoon.

He was still confident his plan to acquire – and maintain possession of – the colonel was going to work. Mostly. That was a risk he was willing to take.

Letting their hacker attack the Phoenix from the inside . . . he couldn't do that. Not without Riley on site to shut it down.

But if he didn't, this was going to be over before it even started.

"I warned you," he muttered, and then he pulled the innocent little light grey device out of his pants pocket, and inserted it into the front of the tower. The machine woke from sleep, and a green LED lit up as the USB drive was accessed.

Nothing else happened.

Mac dragged his attention back to his original project, keeping the computer in his peripheral vision, but it truly did nothing else. There was no indication that the hard drive was being accessed, the fan didn't spin up to cool a suddenly crunching processor.

Maybe whatever it was had to be triggered somehow. The file wouldn't become readable until some other criteria was met.

He reclaimed the screwdriver and successfully manipulated the stripped end of the wire into contact with the capacitor, and then he reached blindly to the edge of the bench, where he'd already stuck torn to size pieces of electrical tape. He snagged one, using the screwdriver to tamp it down snuggly. Then he pressed a small platter battery into place, waiting for the red LED to tell him it was on. When it lit, he flipped over the silver, credit-card sized chassis, and taped the timing device to it securely.

Mac studied the finished product for a long moment.

As far as distractions went, it was definitely going to get the job done. Small, light, and suspicious looking as hell.

He slipped it into his back pocket, returning the borrowed tools to the places he'd found them. Without missing a beat, he swiped his phone off the bench, replacing it in his front pocket as instructed, and in the same motion, he bumped the USB drive that was sticking out of the front of the tower with his elbow. He was already pushing the work stool back under the bench, and the clattering of the wheels and the back of the stool against the counter masked the snap of the drive breaking off.

Just dislodging it might have made someone curious enough to plug it back in, and he didn't want to leave that option on the table. On the flip side, the moment whatever it was didn't work, he was going to have some explaining to do.

And he didn't have time to worry about that right now.

Mac hit the lights and let himself out, heading with forced casualness down the hall towards the stairs. He'd already downloaded what he needed onto a tablet – and then been instructed to connect that tablet to his phone via Bluetooth, which gave them access to the same building diagrams – but he still had a little time before he and Jack had to head to the airstrip. The more he could get done without Jack around, the better.

The less Jack was incriminated in all this, the more useful he would be liaising with local authorities. Hopefully Matty was already on the case, and he knew she'd handle it delicately. She knew they had a hacker with skills to match Riley's. She wouldn't do anything that would tip them off.

No, Matty would go old school. Older school than Mac, possibly even older school than Jack. Things Riley wouldn't think of in a million years.

And right now, it was Riley's brain he needed to crawl inside of. She was going to have to send up a beacon, something she knew Phoenix would find. And the Turks wouldn't be stupid enough to give her a piece of technology. If she got hold of the phone they were calling him from, she'd only have it for a few moments. She couldn't text him, hopefully she knew by now he was compromised, so the next most likely person was Jack or Matty.

He entered the stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time. What else could she use . . . ? She might know enough about power to cause an isolated blackout, and he could get Bozer to search for that, maybe leave a message with Sparky somehow. There were several labs inside the building that were shielded to the point no cellular or radio penetrated, but how would he knock out wifi without them catching on . . .

Mac popped back out on the ground floor, took his first right, and almost plowed right into Jack.

This time he looked a little less Jack Dalton, and a little more Ethan Darby. He'd changed into a faded blue polo shirt, brown cargo pants, and brown hiking boots to match. Throw in a camera and a rapid-strap and he kinda looked like a real photojournalist.

His partner didn't miss the assessment, and Mac gave him a half-smile. "Can't believe you let Matty browbeat you into changing your image there, Ethan."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Please. I just wanted to wind her up a little." His partner fell in step beside him, and Mac sighed inwardly and kept heading for his lab.

So much for the extra time.

"I still can't believe we have to do this," Jack groused.

"I can't believe you thought a pair of pants would be an effective change agent." In his hands, maybe – like if the pants wound up in the plane's rear engine –

Then his brain caught up, and Mac shot Jack a sideways look. "Unless pants are a part of your whole 'thing' you wouldn't tell us about with Matty?" Perhaps he could get his partner out of his hair after all. "Wait . . . and that time you had frostbutt, and she said-"

"Now you know you and I ain't talkin' about this, and besides, I apologized and we hashed it out." Jack's voice had dropped in pitch and volume. "I got some very good advice from a friend of mine about that, so I'm gonna pay it forward and give you a little advice of my own: you let that one lie, buddy. There are some things you're better off not knowin'."

Mac let his lips quirk a little. _Big guy, you have no idea._

When this was all over – if they lived – Jack was going to kick his ass. Literally. This one might actually come to blows.

And he'd take every one.

They hit the lab – the only place that Mac would have logically been heading, which meant he had no recourse but to enter – and he glanced around the bench before he started collecting the things he was going to need. His duffel was still out, for exactly this purpose, and Jack blew out his cheeks and picked up the nearest fragile looking thing he could find to start playing with.

Mac didn't even look; he pulled open a drawer and removed a roll of one inch metal tape, the same kind used to make tape measures. "Put it down, Jack."

". . . you don't even know what I'm doin'."

He smiled, just a little, and used his swiss army knife to snip off about three feet of the tape. "Neither do you, buddy."

"You wanna talk about it?"

 _. . . I really would._ Of course Jack knew something was up. His smiles were a little too easy, his voice pitched just a little too light. But Jack should have expected that. Frankly, given where they were heading, even if he hadn't just been blackmailed into a prison breakout – by his dead torturer - that was likely going to end with a bullet in his skull, he probably would have been behaving this way anyway.

Because in either scenario, there was nothing Jack could do to help.

So Mac chose a different topic. "You mean explain to you that you're holding a five amp power supply that's going to operate Sparky's left leg when we get him mobile?"

There was a ringing silence behind him, and Mac turned with a laugh, just in time to see Jack dropping the metal box-looking thing back to the counter as if it had stung him. He looked almost betrayed that Mac had let him touch it in the first place.

"Are you kiddin' me?! That death machine's bad enough, crawlin' into your and Bozer's heads like it's your friend. You're gonna let that murder bot _walk_?!"

 _Distraction accomplished._

"Well, that 'death machine's learning way more from Bozer than it is from me." Mac deftly folded the tape into six inch sections and then bound them with a thick rubber band, and tossed it nonchalantly into his duffel. "And he wouldn't hurt a fly, so . . ."

"Trust me. It knows. It'll make Bozer its first human slave. It probably has fear sensors."

He grinned again despite himself. "No, Jack, Sparky doesn't have 'fear sensors'. Per se," he acknowledged, after an appropriate pause.

Exactly as he intended, Jack's eyebrows shot for his hairline. "Per se? What the hell's that supposed to mean?!"

"Well," and Mac started rifling through the odds and ends drawer, "humans have some visible reactions to fear, the same ones you'd look for during an interrogation. Sparky's got infrared cameras, so he could, conceivably, see a heat change in a person's skin, and use that same capability to detect a person's pulse and heart rate. Riley tweaked his volume estimation algorithm, so he'd probably be able to put together a weight profile that was accurate to around, I dunno, a few ounces? That'd give him your blood pressure. Then there's pupil dilation, breathing patterns –"

When he found what he was looking for, he used his hip to slide the drawer shut, and found Jack just staring at him in dismay. Mac blinked at him.

"Jack. Sparky can't do anything Matty can't do."

The dismay shifted to almost outrage. "Dude, did that just come outta your mouth?"

For a split second, Mac didn't follow. He'd already had to tell Hakan way more about their interactions than he'd wanted to. Spilled inside jokes during the briefing with Matty, and in the hallway. But if his shadow knew where and how to get Riley, and where to get him, it would be foolish not to believe that he also had access to at least some US intelligence. He had to know by now who Matty was, at least that she was ex CIA, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that her skill set probably wasn't 'the muscle.'

But then he was able to smash down his guilt, since Jack didn't know any of that, and try to put his comment in perspective. Matty the Hun. If anyone could take over the world, it would be Matty.

"Would that really be so bad?" he tried, tucking the space pen into the side pocket of his duffel. "No more wars, law and order –"

"No more fun – like ever," Jack added sullenly. "Hell, we're basically indentured servants _now_."

Mac gave him a long look. "Jack. We are far from indentured servants. One, we get a salary, two, we can quit anytime we want –"

"Listen, I dunno what she pays you, but I don't call that thing I get every month a salary. It ain't even an allowance."

Mac just shook his head, and decided he could collect the rest of his supplies when they landed. He zipped up his duffel, slipping it over his shoulder. Then he cast one last quick look around the lab, this time legitimately to check that anything he was working on was going to be stable if left in its current configuration for a few days.

"And don't think I don't know what you're doin'," Jack added, casually blocking the door. "C'mon, man. Talk to me."

Mac stopped a few feet away from him, then let himself slump a little, and took a deep breath. "Look, Jack-"

A phone buzzed.

For one terrifying second, Mac thought it was his. He even pulled it to look, half expecting to see that they knew, that they'd tried the USB drive and it hadn't worked, they'd seen what he was shaping with the paperclips-

But the screen was dark.

Jack, on the other hand, gave a dark chuckle, then shoved his phone into his pocket without texting back. "I knew it." His stance shifted, no longer blocking the door, and Mac took that as the invitation it was, and walked out of the lab with him.

". . . okay, I'll bite . . ."

Jack just shook his head. "She's literally going to make me strut the catwalk."

Matty had texted him. About his pants.

Mac carefully schooled his features, not daring to hope. "So this thing with Matty and pants is serious, huh."

"Not another word, bud. I mean it."

Mac held up his hands in surrender. "Your bag downstairs? I'll grab it and meet you out front."

Jack nodded, and took a left even as Mac continued down the main hallway. "Yeah. Thanks man!"

His shadow – or the hacker – let him get to the locker room before they sent him the text.

 **What does he know?**

Mac glared at the phone a moment, then made sure the locker room was actually empty. "I have nightmares," he said shortly. "He knows I didn't sleep last night."

Every word, every look, every gesture that those cameras captured, Hakan would use against him. To manipulate him. Control him. There was no telling how long he'd been watched, so he couldn't overdo it, but if Mac gave the man just enough to convince him that the events of last year had left him more deeply unsettled than they actually had -

Manipulating people went both ways. That son of a bitch was never getting inside his head again. Never.

The phone vibrated in his hand.

 **What else?**

Mac smiled bitterly. "That I won't talk about it. Which means he's not gonna stop pushing."

That was something Hakan should have already learned about Jack Wyatt Dalton.

Mac didn't wait for a response. He shoved the phone back in his pocket – the front right pocket, they'd been very explicit – and shouldered Jack's bag.

The phone didn't vibrate again.

-M-

He swung for the War Room, presuming that's where she'd be since the Paraguay mission was just getting to the good part. But Matty surprised him by popping out of one of the formal conference rooms he passed along the way.

"In here, Dalton."

He eyed the doorframe a moment, even went as far as to duck his head in, scanning the room. Besides Matty, it was empty.

She'd approached the table but wasn't sitting, and then turned and gave him an impatient look. "Today!"

He grimaced at her tone and stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. "Easy. I was just checkin' to see if HR was in here with ya."

He expected a sarcastic quip, a reminder that Human Resources was on the third floor, or maybe some pun involving pants. He had a few prepped. But her face wasn't sarcastic. It was irritated, but also hard. Calculating.

Worried.

Something was very wrong.

"Turn off your phone."

Jack fished it out immediately and mashed down on the power button, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the door had actually closed. This particular conference room didn't have glass walls, and the hallway sounds were quite muffled. Once the phone powered down, Jack focused completely on her. "What happened?"

In answer, she turned and plucked something up off the conference room table. Then she silently offered them to him.

Paperclips. That had clearly encountered his partner.

Jack accepted them, laying them flat in his palm. One was totally Indiana Jones' hat, the other one was a crescent moon and a star.

Symbol on the Turkish flag.

"Mac left these for me."

Jack looked at them one more time, then back at Matty. " . . . yeah . . ."

Of course the kid had Turkey on the brain. It was obvious to anyone that knew him that'd had a rough night. He was being way too damn calm and cheerful.

"Look closer."

He frowned at her, but did as he was instructed. "Matty, you wanna get to the point?"

But then he saw that the point had gotten her. Or somebody, anyway; there was dried blood on the paperclips.

"Jack, did you notice _anything_ out of the ordinary last night?"

Jack picked up the crescent moon in his left hand and studied it more closely. Burgers, Bozer's assertion that they weren't much different than the criminals they were puttin' behind bars, maybe that messed with Mac's head a little bit, but after the popcorn –

Or just before it.

"Yeah," Jack finally replied. "Yeah. Thought I saw somethin'. Or someone." His eyes slid back to Matty. "Don't tell me it really was Murdoc-"

The brief look of confusion that crossed her face was more reassuring than any words could have been. That was clearly not where she was headed. "No, I don't think this is him. Didn't you go check it out?"

The second part was a little more accusatory than he cared for, but Jack tried not to bristle. "Well of course I did, but not till Mac thought I left for the night. He's wound up enough about the trial without me puttin' boogeymen into his head." But his stomach was started to clench up, like he'd missed something, something big. "Matty, what's goin' on?"

She stared at him a moment, frowning. "Jack, I think Mac's been compromised."

It took a second for the words to sink in, and then Jack looked up into the north corner of the conference room, where the camera sat. The LED was off.

That was a hell of an accusation. Yeah, the trial was dredging up some shit, but Mac compartmentalized better than anyone he'd ever known. To suggest that he was straight-up unable to do his job -

"Compromised how?"

Matty uncharacteristically hesitated. "The hat, Jack. The grey hat conference."

The hacker conference? She thought-

Riley.

He felt something poke him sharply, and he opened his right fist to see that he'd bent the paperclip sculptures in half.

" . . . Riley told us she'd be radio silent, Matty -"

"Not to me she's not. At least she's not supposed to be. She's supposed to be in Las Vegas." Of course she knew. She knew everything. "I've sent agents I trust to track her down. It's still morning, Jack, she could just be sleeping, she could be at a room party. Until I know more –"

This wasn't happening. "You think they have her."

"I think Mac thinks they have her." Her voice softened, just a little. "And this was the only way he could tell me, which means –"

Which meant he couldn't say it, or write it down. Jack hadn't seen or heard a single duress code, and Mac wasn't giving away a damn thing in his tone or his body language.

Whoever got to Mac, they could hear him, and they could see him.

"- which means," she repeated, a little more firmly, "we have to assume that he's fully compromised, and that the Phoenix systems are compromised. We can't do anything that would signal to whoever's watching him that we know."

Jack went ahead and crushed the paperclips into a wad of twisted metal. Mac was bugged. Someone must have approached him after Jack left. Gone right into his house. Goddamn, they needed to install a security system –

And if they had Riley, if they had his little girl, if they were doing to her what they'd done to Mac -

"Jack, you need to calm down."

Never, in the history of ever, had those words had the desired effect. And they sure as shit didn't now. "Matty, _tell me_ you've got something."

"We do. We have Mac." Matty stepped forward, and she took Jack's still-fisted right hand between her own. "He's been in the building since 3 am, in half a dozen different labs. He's got a plan. For right now, I need you on that plane with him to Amsterdam."

Jack stared at her incredulously. "Yeah, and doesn't that tell you somethin'? When the hell does Mac actually plan ahead? Huh? How bad's shit gotta be for him to realize that he can't just whip up a goddamned miracle out of whatever garbage is lyin' around?!"

Her frown softened. "I know, Jack, but right now there's no alternative. That's why you're going with him. Don't let him out of your sight. I'm pulling in our European assets, but I have to be careful that we don't tip off the colonel's people. You're all Mac's got for the next twenty-four hours."

Jack unclenched his jaw with effort. "And if he does somethin' Oversight wouldn't approve?"

You didn't typically assign someone to help compromised agents. You assigned someone to prevent them from doing whatever it was they were being forced to do.

And Jack knew, in his heart, that Mac wouldn't hurt innocents. Not even to save Riley's life.

And not to save his own.

He saw immediately that Matty knew it too. "Let Mac take the lead, and use your best judgement. See if you can get him to give us more clues."

The closer they put Mac to Amsterdam, the worse this was gonna get. Matty had to know that. "What about Riley?"

She squeezed his hand. "Mac wouldn't be doing what he's doing if he didn't think he could get her out of this. We _will_ find her, Jack."

Jack let out a short, shaky breath, and then he nodded. Mac wouldn't just take some asshole's word for it that they had Riley, which could mean she was waiting for them in Amsterdam. And if not, the Netherlands were a hell of a lot closer to Turkey than LA.

"Grab a burner when you hit Amsterdam, and send me the number the way we did in Chechnya."

Jack cast his mind back, then gave her a short nod. If Mac was fully compromised, they couldn't trust their own systems, or fellow intelligence agencies. That was why she'd disabled the camera in the conference room, and had him kill his phone. He'd have to assume anything he did in proximity to Mac – and after they landed, his room, Mac's room, the whole enchilada – would be compromised as well.

It finally occurred to him to glance at his watch. They'd been in the room about four and a half minutes. "So what were we doin' in here?"

Matty gave him a small, but sincere, smile. "We were discussing your wardrobe choices, Jack."

More than ever he wished he was taking those tac pants. And ballistic armor. And a fucking tac team. There was no way in hell he wasn't going to secure a weapon after they landed. Even if he had to take it off a courtroom guard.

He turned back to the door, rolling his head on his shoulders to try to loosen some of the tension. "Carter's on deck while I'm gone. Bring him in, and let him do his job, you get me?" Aydin had at least one guy on the ground in LA, and if he was anything like that a-hole that swiss cheesed the villa –

Technologically compromised or not, Jack's second in command was more than capable of defending the Phoenix and her people. If this was about revenge, if that's why they had Riley and Mac, than Matty and Bozer were gonna be on that list. Cage, too, if they realized she was in Australia, and a wounded target to boot. Every agent on that damn op could be marked.

"I will. You be careful too," she said softly, and then he pushed open the door, and she goosed him.

Jack shot at least a foot into the air, truly startled, and Matty looked up at him with a cross between a coy smirk and pity. Then she headed towards the War Room like nothing had happened.

-M-

This time, when the door opened, Riley turned her face away.

The niqab was just too stifling. She'd never liked things on her face, and now that it was bruised, and she was pretty sure she had particle-board burns on her left cheek, the fabric was straight-up painful. Her compromise was to keep the rest of the headgear on, and duck away in the hopes that was good enough.

Time to find out.

Whoever it was came only a few steps into the room, and they were silent. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then she heard a ceramic dish set on the floor – not gently, but not dropped, exactly – and whoever it was withdrew. As the door was closing, Riley dared to glance over, but all she caught was the pattern of desert camo.

So it was a soldier. Maybe the same one, maybe not.

By the door, a nondescript baked ceramic bowl had been set, and after waiting a few seconds to see if it was a trick, Riley uncurled herself painfully from the corner. Her abdomen hurt like hell; the only thing she could compare it to was when Patricia Thornton had been making a point and hit her with a side kick that had sent her flying across the mat. And she knew the other woman had held back, and delivered more of a shove than the devastating attack she could have.

The asshole who'd kicked her, he'd been making a different kind of point.

If she hit one of them again, she better damn well take them down for good.

Once she was standing up straight, Riley intentionally stretched out her sore muscles, taking her time. Just in case she needed to move in a hurry. But no one else came through the door, and soon enough her hunger got the better of her, and Riley approached the bowl.

It contained about a cup of some kind of brown sludge.

Riley picked up the bowl and gave it a sniff, but outside of some kind of grain or bean, it didn't have much scent. She scooped a little of the paste onto her finger and gave it a try.

It was a kind of coarse puree, bland and overwhelmingly salty. She couldn't quite pick everything out, but chickpeas were involved.

Actually, it was almost exactly what Mac had described. Nutraloaf mashed with water and salt. And that was saying something, because nutraloaf was basically a salt lick. Riley made herself choke down about half of it, then chased it with three cups of water. Even then, she felt like she'd eaten an entire bag of cheap gas station potato chips.

Except without the full feeling. Just the bloated feeling.

Riley took the bowl with her to the far side of the room, and sat back down, with her back to the wall. Unlike Mac, she didn't have company, hallucinations or otherwise. Her mental Jack appreciated her attitude, but also approved of her new plan, which was to feign fright and let them think they'd cowed her. Maybe she'd get further with them that way.

Because they hadn't asked her for a damn thing. She'd woken up after the beating lying in the middle of the room, with the headscarf and niqab firmly back in place. She'd been sore all over, but her left shoulder and cheek, and her stomach, were the worst of it. She'd been fuzzy, too, like the first time she'd woken up.

They were probably going to keep that up. Drugging her to keep her quiet until they got whatever it was they wanted.

And if they weren't asking her any questions, then it wasn't her they wanted. Which put her solidly into hostage territory.

She was being used to barter for something else. Either to pressure the Phoenix to intervene in Aydin's trial, or maybe just change the testimonies of two witnesses.

Ethan Darby and Luka Morrow.

And if they thought they were gonna force Jack to do something he didn't want to, they had another thing coming. False testimony would quickly be undone as soon as she was freed, so –

So she wasn't going to be freed. And Jack and Mac weren't going to live long enough to recant their testimonies.

And they were smart enough to know that. So maybe it was a straight-up trade. Her for the colonel.

Phoenix might actually pretend to go for that, confident that they could keep a good enough eye on Aydin to pick him back up, even if they let him go temporarily. Aydin's guys would have to know that the Phoenix would never stop looking for Aydin, even if the trade went down. But it wasn't exactly Matty's call. The president of Turkey had it in for Aydin, and the trial was a big deal. That would cost a lot of capital, and if the State Department wasn't willing to spend it to get Mac back, they sure as hell weren't going to spend it for an ex-con who almost started a cyberwar between Russia and the rest of Europe.

And Aydin's guys would know that. Particularly if they were tapped into Turkey's intelligence agency.

Riley let her head fall back against the wall and listened the temple bell strike. Only seconds later, the call to prayer rang out across the city.

If they were forcing her to adhere to the standard Muslim woman's dress code and customs, it stood to reason that they would be distracted, if not actively praying, during those calls. Maybe a skeleton crew to hold security, but some of them would be observing the prayer call, surely. Maybe that was what she should time her next escape attempt to. The prayer ran for about two and a half minutes.

And only happened during the day, meaning it was daytime. With no natural light, she didn't have any other way to tell.

Riley yawned, and absently rubbed her cheek. It was throbbing, but a little numb, all at the same time. Kind of annoying, but ignorable.

Better.

The thought seemed odd to her. Why would it be better? It's not like she'd taken any –

Tylenol . . .

Riley sucked in a deeper breath, and then she looked at the bowl. It was hard to focus on it; she hadn't realized her eyes were getting blurry because there were so few sharp lines in the room, it was all one color, same lighting –

She'd been drugged.

 _No._

She'd drugged herself.

The drugs were in the food.

-M-

Mac claimed the couch as the jet taxied, fishing a USB cable out of his duffel and plugging his phone into the port on the nearby table, that was just for that purpose. He also pulled out the tablet, hoping that by isolating himself a little, Jack would give him enough space to work out Amsterdam's typical traffic patterns.

What he really needed to know at this point was the average emergency response time between the nearest police precinct, and the courthouse in the Hague.

It wasn't exactly something he could Google.

He'd solved getting them out of the building and immediate vicinity, but his responsibilities didn't end there. Hakan had been pretty clear; Aydin was to be free for a minimum of 72 hours. That meant getting him out of Amsterdam, and probably getting him out of Europe proper, or at the very least getting him away from any and all CC TV, security, and surveillance cameras.

And his transportation means were limited. There were cars, buses, trains, boats, and aircraft.

Across from him, Jack settled into his usual seat, picking up his phone, and Mac very carefully didn't shoot him more than a glance as the plane accelerated down the runway.

If Matty had clued him in, Jack was doing a bang-up job of keeping it to himself.

Mac sighed silently, powered up the tablet, and brought up the transit map of the Hague he'd downloaded from Phoenix.

The trains were out. Too easy to stop. While it was perfectly plausible for them to bail from a train for another form of transportation, it was just as easy for law enforcement to board. Plus it was trapped to a single route, regardless of the speed at which it moved between two points. He could think of at least seventeen ways that could go wrong.

Not to mention the sheer number of innocents that could get hurt.

Buses had the same problem. Too many people on board, not agile enough, and too easy to identify through aerial surveillance. There weren't enough mountains or densely forested regions between Amsterdam and pretty much any country west to successfully evade satellite.

Boats would be a good choice, if his shadow had given him a three year head's up. That was how far into the future the Nieuwe Maas river locks had to be reserved for use. It was a main connector to the Rhine, one of the primary commercial and recreational arteries of Europe, and the schedule of the locks was essentially both unbreakable and unhackable. Some of the lists were paper only, and even police and emergency boats had a hard time cutting the lines. Not to mention it had the same problem as a train – only one track, and way more stations, each one requiring a full stop and yet another opportunity to be discovered.

Aircraft had a few issues too, mainly that they required actual pilots. He could drive a bus, boat, or train, but he couldn't pilot small aircraft or helos. Another problem was that a long flight was pretty much screaming to be discovered and ended with a missile strike. Short hops, however, were less likely to be detected, and harder to scramble against. Mac scrolled along the map, scanning the local buildings for helipads. There were several hospitals in the area, but none with their own dedicated fleet. Like in the US, the helos were owned by private firms and served geographical areas rather than specific facilities.

However, there was a news station with a pair of birds, about twenty kilometers outside the city proper. And getting hold of some old BMWs, pre GPS, wouldn't be difficult in a city like the Hague.

Mac picked up his phone and opened his messaging app.

 **I need two helos grounded tomorrow. Can you make that happen?**

It was about time he figured out exactly how many resources Hakan and his men actually had at their disposal. And, just maybe, how many of them there were.

Mac set the phone aside, and continued scanning the area. There were multiple regional airstrips to the west of Amsterdam. They could take the two helos to a point not far from the airstrips, steal a few more cars, hit the airport, and at least get out of the Netherlands. Small fixed wing craft could be landed just about anywhere, and he could rinse and repeat that process across Europe. If they did it fast enough, and took a carefully plotted route, he could probably keep them a step or two ahead of law enforcement.

But he'd need a path a computer algorithm would never guess. And the aforementioned pilots.

Beside him, the phone vibrated, and Mac glanced at the glass.

 **So are we just going to keep ignoring each other?**

Mac blinked, and in the upper left corner, in smaller text, he saw that the sender was Jack.

He smiled, then glanced over the tablet at his partner, who was quietly watching him. When he saw that he had Mac's eyes, he glanced back down and started typing on his phone again.

The message popped up only a moment later. **Playing scrabble?**

Mac heaved a sigh – an audible one this time – and deftly swiped the map away, displaying a document, instead. He then turned the tablet around so Jack could see. "I'm reading up on all Luka's articles from the last ten years. I dunno which of our analysts writes these, but they're _really_ good."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." He didn't have to fake it, either; he was truly impressed. "This one's about what was once the largest library of science and medicine periodicals in East Africa, and how it gradually got almost completely consumed by the Tanzanian jungle over the last fifty years. Luka tied it back to a deeper understanding of –"

"Yeah, that's super interesting," Jack interrupted flatly. "Ethan took pictures of Indian models. Like, from India."

Mac's phone vibrated, and he glanced at it.

 **Be more specific.**

Not from Jack.

"Yes he did," Mac agreed readily, even as he responded to the text. "Do you remember the article Luka wrote that accompanied those pictures?"

 **Local news outfit, about twenty klicks west of downtown.**

Mac was going to have be very careful that the things he asked for couldn't be linked together into a cohesive plan. The more Hakan knew, the harder it was going to be to keep control. And Mac was going to need that control. Once Aydin was actually out in the world, and could be re-acquired by law enforcement at any moment, Mac had more leverage to force them to give him a location on Riley.

Jack hummed. "Prolly something about the caste system, and how the women were coerced into the job, then demonized by their families for immoral behavior and cast out onto the street or worse."

Mac blinked, then looked away from the phone and refocused on Jack. " . . . that's . . . basically correct."

His partner smirked at him. "Just 'cause I don't read quite as much as you don't mean I don't know how."

Mac inclined his head. "Well, keep in mind anything Ethan and Luka have produced is fair game during cross examination. They could try to hit us with accusations of racism, classism, religious discrimination or anti-sectarianism in general . . ."

Jack nodded agreeably. "And if I knew what any of those ten dollar words meant, I'm sure I'd be just as worried about it as you are." Mac shot him a mildly dirty look and refocused on the tablet, and Jack pushed his feet out into the aisle, getting comfortable.

"That makin' you feel any better?"

This time Mac feigned impatience, and Jack gestured at the tablet. "The busywork. You're goin' full millennial over there. The more devices you got around you, the more I know you're just lookin' for a distraction."

There was no getting around this. Jack was going to harangue him until he got what he wanted.

Mac let the tablet drop flat into his lap and made a production of sitting up straight. "Something on your mind, partner?"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Same thing that's on yours. Partner."

There was absolutely nothing odd about Jack choosing those words, or that inflection, but Mac could easily see how it might sound to someone who didn't know them. Someone who was listening in without the full context. "And what's that?"

Jack gave him a disarming grin. "That ya didn't sleep last night. Probably didn't eat breakfast. You're memorizin' every damn random factoid you can get your eyeballs on to distract yourself from the details that actually mean somethin'."

. . . which was exactly what he was pretending to do. And if not for his early morning visitor, probably exactly what he would have in all honesty been actually doing.

This conversation was going to be a fine line of making Hakan think he was hanging on by a thread, and not being so open that he freaked out his partner.

Mac raised a calculated eyebrow. ". . . and?" It wasn't exactly admitting that Jack was right. Even though it kinda sorta was.

The grin stayed firmly in place. "And I am here to tell you that you don't need a bunch of random facts to distract you when ya got ol' Jack sittin' right here."

. . . that was not where he thought this conversation was going to go.

His partner cocked his head to the side. "I'm right here, Mac." His voice was much softer. Almost gentle. "You don't gotta pretend. It's just us."

God, if only that were true.

Mac dropped his eyes back to the tablet, turning slightly away from his phone, like he wanted to hide his face from the camera. "What do you want to hear, Jack? That I couldn't sleep? That the insomnia's back?"

"Only if that's the truth, bud. I just wanna know what's going on in that ginormous brain. Maybe carry a little of the weight for ya."

He appreciated the sentiment, and Mac slumped a little against the couch. He took his time answering. "It's . . . nothing. Just . . . I did what I was supposed to. Unpacked it all. Looked at it, talked through it with Dr. Miller, made my peace, and put it away. Now . . ." He trailed off, letting his actual exhaustion bleed through into his voice.

Jack nodded. "Now it's like you took a few steps back."

Mac was still for a moment, then he nodded dully.

"Dude, that's totally normal. Anybody'd feel that way in your shoes."

"You don't seem to," Mac said without thinking. As soon as he heard his own words, he glanced up at Jack, a little alarmed.

For a split second, he'd forgotten this conversation was for show. And the truth of the matter was, they hadn't talked about it. Not what Jack had gone through. Not really.

His partner pursed his lips, then blew out a sigh. "For me it's weird shit. At night. If somebody's radio is blastin' the bass, and it sounds like drums . . . can't tell you how many times I've found myself on my feet by the bed without even knowin' what got me up."

Drums . . . Mac tried to place that detail, and Jack correctly interrupted his confusion. "At the Roma camp. For the first little while, I think they parked on the outskirts so nobody'd figure out I was in the truck. I couldn't really hear the instruments or the singin', but I could hear the drums."

Delirious with drugs and pain, Mac could understand how unsettling that must have been.

"Yeah, and sometimes I catch a whiff of a certain spice, or whatever the hell they put on that poultice . . ." Jack's eyes were staring off at something only he could see, then he seemed to shake himself, and they zeroed back on him. "But as much as that sucked, bud, it ain't the same as what you went through. And you know that ain't _never_ gonna happen again, right?"

Mac nodded woodenly. "Yeah, Jack. I know."

Jack chuckled. "That was convincin'."

Despite himself, Mac laughed. "I know it intellectually. That particular pattern of events cannot be perfectly recreated."

"Man, forget perfectly recreated. Nothin' even _close_. I won't let it." His brown eyes were soft but intense, boring into his, and Mac nodded again. He knew that, and he believed it. Jack was never going to let him leave that courthouse with Aydin and his men.

The distraction was going to have to distract Jack too.

"C'mere, man." Jack held out his arms.

Mac gave him a long look. "No, Jack, we are not hugging this out."

The broad grin that spread across his partner's face had no small amount of mischief in it. "Come on, baby, you know you want it."

"I really don't," Mac assured him, even as Jack gathered his feet under him and stood. "Being touched against your will is assault, Jack – ah, geez, this is gonna happen, isn't it -"

"Aww yeah, this right here." And then Jack was there, pulling Mac to his feet and enveloping him in one of his giant, no holds barred yet still strangely alpha male hugs that he saved for rainy days, like when he'd been full of sodium pentothal in a prison in a third world country, or freshly freed from a pressure plate outside the UN. It was big and exuberant and it left you not so much with companionship and warmth, like a Bozer hug, but instead a fully kindled fire that burned within you and you knew how fiercely the man trying to crush you cared about you.

He swung Mac back and forth a few times, and Mac finally gave in and wrapped his limp arms around Jack, giving him a couple pats on the back.

On the top of his right shoulder, completely out of frame of any of the many cameras, Mac felt the rapid tap of Jack's finger. Two quick taps. A press and a tap. Three long presses.

I, N, and O.

 _I know._

Mac let himself relax a little bit into Jack's embrace, the closest equivalent of slumping in relief he could manage.

Jack knew. Which meant Matty had told him. Which meant Matty knew.

Which meant he wasn't on his own.

"Okay, big guy, it's getting a little weird now-"

Jack reared his head back, then swallowed his emotion and nodded. But didn't immediately let go. "You think so?"

Mac actively tried to pull away. "Yep. Don't wanna have to explain this to the pilot-"

"Ah, he knows how we get." But Jack did finally release him, making sure he was steady on his feet and then giving him an awkward pat on the shoulder. "And you're the one who makes it weird."

Mac opened his mouth, then just sighed, and rescued his tablet before he sat back down on the couch. "I do not make it weird-"

"You really do, you are like the most and yet least huggable person on the planet –" Jack headed over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, holding it up. Mac shook his head.

"What does that even mean?"

"It means you don't hug people nearly enough like you mean it." Jack reclaimed his usual chair, twisting open the cap. "You just do these kind of easy, dishonest hugs."

Mac felt his eyebrows rise. ". . . dishonest hugs?"

"Mmm-hmm." Jack took a swig of water. "You know what I mean."

Mac cleared his throat and gave up. "Yeah, okay. I'll, uh, I'll get more practice in. After we get back."

"You do that." Jack gestured with the water bottle. "That hot librarian'll thank me."

He was gesturing at the phone. Like he thought the texts Mac were getting were from her.

Mac rolled his eyes, but he did pick up the phone, just to be sure he hadn't missed anything – and Jack's signal hadn't been seen.

There _was_ a message, and another arrived as he watched.

 **We'll ground your helicopters.**

 **It seems you're not taking us seriously.**

The warm feeling that finally, _finally_ something had gone right seized instantly into shards of ice. Mac pulled up the keyboard, trying to lock his expression into a still mostly pleasant one.

 **I told you he wasn't going to stop pushing until he thought we had a heart to heart.**

Mac waited a long moment, but there was no further message. He tried again.

 **I swear to you, he doesn't know. I'm keeping my end of the agreement.**

The phone remained quiet, and once he had no ready excuse to keep holding it, Mac set it back down with a quick grin at his partner. Jack, for his part, chuckled and took another pull from his water bottle, turning towards the cockpit as the door opened and their copilot emerged.

Mac settled back down with the tablet, glancing again at his phone, but the screen remained dark.

-M-

So, not what I think some of you were expecting. You didn't really think Mac would try to sneak one past Matty, didja? In summary, Mac's got most of a plan, Matty and Jack are now aware that Mac and Riley are in trouble, and Riley's starting to realize her role in all of this.

We're having fun now?


	4. Chapter 4

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

Jack took in the twinkling lights, then stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets with a little sigh. "Y'know, nowhere else on Earth'll ever measure up to the perfection that is Texas, but even I'll admit, this place does have its charms."

He'd enjoyed the city in '09 during his first stint as Bryce Villanova. Gotten to know it pretty well, too, at least the less than touristy parts. The funny squashed buildings, the wide pedestrian thoroughfares and the narrow crooked streets. Intersections that didn't make any sense and everyone just tore through them going way the hell too fast.

But right now he was strolling along one of the main drags of the Hague. It was actually its own damn town as well as a kind of seat of legislation and governance, about an hour's drive southwest of Amsterdam. He'd been there a few times as Bryce, mostly chasing dirtbags, and it really hadn't changed all that much. Lotta nice cars, lotta embassies.

And exactly what you'd expect to supply that clientele, out in plain sight too.

"Well, much as I hate to disparage your birthplace, I'd take the weather here over the weather in Houston hands down." Mac turned up the collar of his leather jacket, a little smile on his lips as he studied the city around them.

Jack had spotted their tail the moment he and Mac had stepped out of the Hotel Des Indes, a beyond swanky little joint with its own private art gallery – literally a big oval room full of pictures of dogs, beachside cliffs, and not terribly attractive naked dudes. Security was tight, so that's where the majority of the folks brought in to testify were staying – apparently Turkish art featured heavily the gallery, and the Des Indes was more than happy to host in return for some favors to be named at a later date. It was a sure bet that the whole damn place was under surveillance by Turkish intelligence, and if their own information was correct, by extension, Colonel Aydin's mole.

So the big question was, was their tail Turkish intelligence, or one of Aydin's new batch of _Bordo Bereliler_. Or, bonus, someone else altogether.

If Mac had spotted the guy he didn't show it, taking in the buildings and the people and looking a little more at ease than he had all day. Unless his partner had intentionally hidden it from him, Mac hadn't gotten a text since they landed.

It was probably safe to say Aydin's hacker was watching and listening through Mac's phone. And maybe Jack's as well. As a precaution, Jack had turned his off when the prosecutor had started his coaching session, and had 'forgotten' to turn it back on. He'd also already decided that, if they got into a pickle, he was going to insist that Mac actually use his own damn phone for parts, and maybe buy them a few minutes where they could actually speak.

Because Mac wasn't giving him a goddamn thing. He'd done something on the tablet for about an hour, then pleaded to be left alone to nap. Jack wasn't sure how much sleep the kid actually got, but the performance kept him occupied for the majority of the flight. After that, they'd hopped their rental car – and Mac had put his phone in the cupholder next to Jack's, the way he always did – and checked into the hotel. They'd met with the prosecution's team in a conference room that looked as though it belonged in a Viennese palace, been confirmed for testimony tomorrow, and then split up and coached.

It had taken the rest of the afternoon. Now, dusk was settling over the Hague, and Jack had insisted they find something to eat that didn't look like it belonged in that stupid art gallery.

But there was something he needed to do first. Unfortunately, as far away from Mac as possible. And ditching his partner felt like the absolute worst thing he could do right now. Even though Mac wasn't being terribly forthcoming about his plan – in fact, not forthcoming at all, not even using the shorthand they'd developed back in the sandbox – Jack had a sneaky suspicion whatever it was, it was going to happen once they got inside that courthouse.

It should be safe to leave him on his own for a little while. Help convince the assholes watching Mac that he was as oblivious as he looked.

"See that little corner pub, with the wrought iron?"

Mac glanced in the direction Jack indicated, then gave a nod.

"Whatddaya say we meet there, about half an hour?"

The blond gave him a quizzical look. "Uh . . . sure. You got somewhere else to be?" Then the curiosity faded a little into suspicion. "Tell me you're not going to call Genevieve-"

Jack frowned at him. "Very funny. Nah, I just gotta go find a . . . Avon Wrinkle place. You know, Dutch 7-11."

His partner blinked at him. "Do you mean, Avondwinkel?"

Jack nodded. "That's what I said."

Mac opened his mouth, then decided to let it go. "Forget your toothbrush?"

Close. But he had a much more convincing lie prepped. "I somehow managed to get here without any pit spray."

Mac started to grin. "You forgot your deodorant?"

"Yeah. Meant to grab it outta my locker before we left, but then our drill sergeant decided a uniform inspection was in order . . ."

The grin became a smirk. "By the end of this trip, you're going to tell me what's up with the pants-"

"Not gonna happen."

"Yeah, well, if you want to borrow my deodorant, pretty sure it's 'gonna happen' . . ."

Jack screwed up his face. "And walk around the Netherlands smellin' like a millennial? That's a hell no, thank you. You can keep your Axe body spray to yourself."

Mac actually looked a little offended. "Really, Jack?"

"Dude, whatever. You can get away with that shit –" And he gestured vaguely at his partner – mostly his hair, "- but grown men like me should smell, you know, like men."

Mac's eyebrows rose politely. "Like an old gym bag. Check."

Jack swatted him in the chest. "You need anything? Maybe some slick Eurotrash hair gel?"

His partner glanced around, getting his bearings. "No, I'm all set. I'm gonna check out that park over there. It's got scale models of a couple different Dutch cities –"

Jack gave a short laugh. "Sometimes I forget how much of a nerd you are."

The blond just shook his head. "Scale models are awesome, Jack, and if was a model of a World War II battle you'd be right there with me."

He couldn't argue with that. "Dude, if you see a mini Panzer division over there, grab me one, wouldja? Oh, and if they have a tiny little Patton or, y'know, a Rommel . . ."

Mac simply turned and walked away. Jack watched him go with a broad grin, then wandered up the street in the direction of bright lights.

A block later, the tail had stayed with him.

Now Jack had a decision to make. He could lose the tail and make it look accidental. Or, he could find out just what the hell was going on. Turkish intelligence _should_ know he and Mac were American agents, so he wouldn't be breaking cover. And Aydin's men would know exactly what he was capable of. Confronting one now might force them to step up their plan, which could be both a good thing or a bad thing.

Then again, Jack was pretty sure if it was one of Aydin's men, the guy was there to kill him, and considering Mac hadn't even _tried_ to stop them from splitting up . . .

No, Mac had been all for it. Which probably meant Jack was meant to lead the tail away and let Mac get up to his own shenanigans.

Jack wasn't sure how he felt about that. And either way, he only had half an hour to acquire a firearm and a burner phone, so playtime was in short supply.

 _Let's just see how persistent you are, buddy._

Jack led the guy down a couple more blocks until he found a side street that was dedicated to the little shops that made Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and all the other damn cities in the Netherlands so charming. He glanced in a few windows until he found a shop he liked – knickknacks and touristy garbage – and headed in. The woman behind the counter looked Scandinavian, and she simply gave him a once-over before turning back to the couple that were cooing over a display of windmills while their eight year old had headed unerringly for the stuffed beavers.

He glanced appreciatively at a stand of jackknives with hand carved wooden handles, then continued to the back of the shop where a very narrow staircase declared that there was more product upstairs, and a sign above the hallway beside it said employees only were permitted past that point. Jack strolled right under the sign and pulled open the faded powder blue door, finding a cramped and packed storage room, and beyond that was a similar door to the back alley. He pulled it closed politely behind him, then turned right and walked about thirty feet before letting himself into the shop two doors down.

Most of Europe wasn't nearly as conscientious as the United States about things like physical security. It was too much of a pain to have doors automatically lock behind you when you were in and out of them all day, and besides, the only people back there were the other shop owners or the garbage men. Shops like these didn't have much in the way of truly valuable merchandise, and if they did, they were under the careful eye of the staff, not locked away in a storage room. That blonde chick was far more interested in potential shoplifters than if a customer let themselves out the back.

Or _in_ the back. Jack gave the young man a nod as he brushed past him, into a store full of paper products, stationary and greeting cards. One pretty purple card with an angry troll on the front caught his eye, and Jack considered picking it up as a way to leave a message for Matty, but decided against it. Through the front windows, he spotted his man, about five foot eleven, charcoal quilted jacket and newsboy cap, put his back to a lamppost and set up watch on the knickknack shop.

An older woman had just finished her purchase, and Jack held the door open for her, chatting her up as he walked out. The guy never even glanced their way.

Jack almost shook his head. What kind of spycraft were they teachin' kids nowadays?

Just in case the guy was leading him on, Jack repeated the maneuver on the opposite side of the street, then headed south, where the shops became slightly less tourist friendly, and more geared towards the poor souls who actually had to live here. It took him a little while to remember the place – Bryce Villanova hadn't been there for years, obviously - but he eventually found the right black-painted door, and he rapped on it twice, then backed off.

Though there was no visible camera or peephole, the mail slot on the front of the door poked open, and a young voice floated out.

"Wat wil je?"

"To speak English," Jack replied gruffly. "I need somethin' put somewhere on short notice."

The mail slot gave that a little thought. "So?"

Jack fished in his interior jacket pocket and pulled out a note, written on the hotel stationary, and a thick wad of euros. "It's all there. And somethin' extra for your trouble."

He offered the euros first, watching them disappear into the mail slot, and after a short pause – not enough to count, but enough to confirm it was legit currency and not counterfeit – the note was snatched away as well.

"Pleasure doin' business with ya."

"Donder op."

Jack almost snorted. It was the Dutch equivalent of "piss off" and it still managed to sound way the hell more polite.

That problem solved, Jack headed back the way he'd come. He had his pick of convenience stores, so he waited for the one where three school aged kids were loitering at the nearby corner, smoking, and there were no CC TV cameras in sight.

He approached the group without a smile – you didn't smile much in the Netherlands unless you knew somebody, or you were up to somethin', and he didn't want to be mistaken for a creeper.

"Hey, fellas."

The kids jumped, looking guilty as hell, and Jack determined that they weren't smoking tobacco. That was fine. He wasn't the pot police.

Not that they knew that.

"Any of you three speak English?"

All three were young, maybe twelve or thirteen, and all with dark eyes and dark curls. But the ringleader – the one who had artfully palmed a lit doobie and was now clearly regretting that decision – cleared his throat with a little cough.

"American?"

Good. Jack nodded. "Tell ya what. I'll give ya twenty euros if one of ya'll run into that store and grab me a prepaid phone - and one'a'them Tony's chocolate bars."

The ringleader took a step back and casually tossed the still-smoldering cannabis onto the bench behind him. "Why?"

Now a disarming grin was appropriate. "'Cause I'm high as a kite, kiddo, and I don't want that guy in that store to know."

The three boys considered that, then gave him matching wide grins, and the ringleader accepted a fifty euro note and strolled over to the convenience store as only a twelve year old who thinks he's being casual can stroll. The other two decided Jack was friendly enough, and recovered their recreational cigarette. They offered him a hit; Jack politely declined.

Apparently it wasn't the kid's first time buying a burner phone, either – he was in and out of that shop in less than three minutes, plastic bag in hand. The stroll back to the group was even more casual than the first time, so much so that Jack couldn't help but wince when kid, package and all, almost wiped out on the curb.

The bag was handed over, and the change was offered up – more than twenty euros. Jack accepted the bag, gave the kids a casual salute, and headed back towards the main drag, with the sound of their smothered but excited laughter echoing after him.

The bag and the phone's packaging ended up in a trash can a block away, and Jack powered on the little flip phone and waited for it to do its thing. Once it was connected, he sent a text to a number he'd memorized more than seven years ago.

 **3 pair GENUINE Helikon Tex SFU pants size M - Asking 15 per. 181 202 8857**

Then Jack grinned to himself, powered down the phone, and slipped it into his pocket. That'd teach Matty to give him grief about his pants.

-M-

 **Lose Jack and visit Madurodam.**

He'd gotten that text hours ago, right after they'd touched down – the first and only one after his aborted conversation with Jack. Mac honestly wasn't sure if it was part of Hakan's original plan, or they'd somehow realized he'd signaled to Matty and Jack, and it was simply going to be a hit.

At least it would be a very interesting place to die.

Madurodam Park was littered with 1:25 scale replicas of everything Holland. Tiny soccer fields, the entirely of Amsterdam as it was in the 17th century, little canals and fields of tiny tulips, monolithic Dutch castles that stood just higher than Mac's waist. The miniatures' lights were on, showing tiny apartments with smiling families sitting down to supper, or little boys hanging out of their windows in their pajamas, watching the lovers on the street below.

There were also life-sized lovers, couples holding hands as they gasped and laughed in delight at the moving windmills, and the sailing boats in actual water. Plenty of witnesses.

MaGyver left his phone in his pocket, knowing they could use it to get his location within a few meters, and started to wander the park.

There were a _lot_ of cameras. He'd been tagged on entrance by at least three, and in the park proper they were readily obvious, up on poles. They were clearly for security purposes, protecting the models so exuberant kids or drunk adults didn't Godzilla the whole of Rotterdam, but there were still plenty of corners and areas of the outdoor park that were outside of their view.

Mac stuck to the perimeter, and it wasn't long before another lone figure, this one with a map of the park, seemed to be meandering in the same direction. Mac crouched in front of a castle portcullis, admiring the intricate individual chain links on the grate's pulley system, and spotted the smooth, concave surface of a lens inside.

There were even cameras _inside_ the models.

"That's really something, isn't it."

The voice had a slight accent – it reminded him of the medic, whose English had also been almost impeccable. Mac took a deep, slow breath, then turned his head, and glanced up at the man who had spoken.

His voice wasn't familiar, but his face was.

Mac couldn't help leaning away when the Turk reached for him, but the most threatening thing he did was simply extend his hand.

"It is good to see you again, American."

Warily, Mac straightened, and when it became clear he had no choice, he reached out and shook the man's hand.

It was hard and calloused, the hand of a soldier, and incredibly strong. He tightened his grip by degrees, and Mac knew it was stupid but he answered in kind. Doing what he did – working on the bike, all the DIY, even playing with paperclips – made his hands a lot stronger than they looked. He refused to flinch, staring the man down.

 _I remember you._

Didn't remember his name, though. Probably never heard it, just like he'd never heard his voice.

This was the man who would come in with his buddy, every morning, and collect him for interrogation. Yank a black hood over his head, and take him across his cell, out the door, twenty-two steps around a curving hallway, to the right, down seventeen stairs, three steps across the landing, then seventeen more stairs-

The Turk's thick lips twisted upwards in something that wasn't quite a smile. "You look well."

Mac bared his teeth. "Where's Riley?"

"You are not here to ask questions." The soldier tightened his grip further, which Mac wasn't quite able to match but he didn't give away the slightest sign of pain, and the Turk was forced to release him to reach inside his coat. Whatever it was, his wrist wasn't angled for the grip of a firearm, and an innocent-looking manila envelope – the right size and shape to hold a stack of cash – was withdrawn.

"You will put this in the safe in your hotel room."

This was a framing job. The purpose was to create evidence of Luka Morrow accepting money from a known collaborator of Aydin's. That's why the man's face wasn't hidden, why he wasn't wearing gloves. Why they met in front of so many cameras.

They wanted his fingerprints on the envelope. They wanted to leave no doubt that Luka was cooperating with Colonel Aydin.

Which probably meant as soon as he'd held up his end, and freed the colonel, he was going to be used as a distraction for both the local 5-0 as well as multiple intelligence agencies.

Exactly what he would have done in Hakan's shoes. Create a solid chain of irrefutable evidence, so that Phoenix would be forced to abandon him. That way, even if he somehow escaped, there would be no safe haven. Instead of the colonel rotting in prison for the rest of his life, it would be one of the Americans responsible for putting him there.

Mac accepted the envelope without looking at the contents and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans, letting his leather jacket hide the part sticking out. "Good talk."

"We're not finished. You will tell us your plan."

MacGyver glanced surreptitiously around them, but it didn't appear that anyone else was either close enough to overhear, or on approach. Then he remembered the phone.

Of course.

"I'll create a distraction, start a building evacuation, and take the colonel along the counselor's hallway to the west side of the building."

All of that was painfully obvious from what he'd downloaded on the tablet, and nothing they shouldn't have pieced together already.

"And how will you accomplish this?"

Mac already knew the Turk wasn't going to like his answer. ". . . don't know yet. I'll think of something."

It was clear the soldier found both his expression and his words unacceptable. "You still test us."

Not two seconds later, his phone vibrated.

He glared at the man in front of him, then fished the phone out of his pocket, unsurprised to see that it was a video call. Mac hesitated for a long moment before he swiped to answer it.

Once again, the beige room was brighter than where he was, and he could see every detail. This time it looked like she was asleep. Her cheek was still visibly swollen, and her split lip looked more cracked and chapped than it had earlier. But she was clearly alive and breathing.

"For every question you refuse to answer, she will suffer."

A hand came into view, male, just as hard and calloused as the pair in front of him. The hand reached out and smoothed a few strands of Riley's hair from her forehead. She didn't really respond.

"I'm telling you the truth," Mac growled, hoping against hope that she was simply sedated, drugged to keep her from causing any trouble. "I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I improvise based on the situation and what's around me. You _know_ that."

They'd made him do it for them.

"You built a device this morning."

Since whoever was watching through the phone's camera had seen him do that, Mac could only nod. "Yes. That's Plan B, in case something goes wrong. It'll trigger a full building evacuation, but it'll bring a lot stronger presence from first responders. I don't want to use it unless we have to."

The Turk gave him a long look. "And once you are on the west side of the building?"

There really was no way to not answer that question. "I'll get us to the neighboring building. There are a series of utility tunnels that are used to control flooding along the tributaries of the Rhine, accessible through maintenance hatches. They're old stone, fairly deep and currently dry. We'll pop up a few miles away, acquire vehicles, and head to that pair of helicopters I asked for."

Sort of.

"And how are we going to escape the courthouse to access these tunnels?"

On the phone's screen, the hand once again stroked Riley's hair, and Mac ground his teeth. "I don't know yet. That will depend on how many will be in our party."

Technically it wasn't a question, but it didn't look like 'technical' particularly mattered, because the fingers in Riley's hair tightened, pulling her head back. The skin between her eyebrows puckered.

"Be more specific."

"I don't know," Mac repeated, looking away from the phone to lock eyes with the Turk he could actually see. "Building security could be tighter or more lax depending on which distraction works, so I'll have to adjust that part on the fly."

There was a soft whine from the phone, and Mac glared at the soldier. "Look, if you want details, you're going to have to give me something to go on. How many on your team, your technical and offensive capabilities, whether or not we'll have coms . . . basic logistics. Otherwise this is the best I can do – the best _anyone_ could do."

The man across from him stared at him a long moment, silently, and Mac finally realized he was getting coached. There was someone in his ear – probably Hakan.

Which could mean Hakan wasn't actually here in the Netherlands. Was he still in the States? Even flying commercial, he'd had half a day to catch up to him and Jack . . . surely he'd want to be on the ground to greet the colonel personally.

So what the hell was he up to?

"I'm holding up my end. And I'm pretty sure no one's cuddling up to your colonel at the moment," he added sharply, "-so _leave her alone_."

The man in front of him curled his lips at Mac's tone, and MacGyver went ahead and pushed his luck, taking a step closer. "Go ahead. Explaining away the bruise will be the least of my problems."

The Turk smirked at him. "I won't leave a bruise."

At least not bruises that would be visible when he was in a suit.

Mac only saw the blow coming because he was expecting it. The guy was lightning quick, and Mac dropped to his knees despite himself. Guy had hit him right under the lungs, and his diaphragm briefly forgot how to function.

The soldier leaned down, putting his lips by Mac's ear. He barely heard the man over his attempts to breathe. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow, American."

And then the Turk walked away.

Mac managed to pull himself back together after a few carefully metered breaths, and he turned over the phone, still in his hand, to see that the video call had been disconnected. He'd cut the conversation short, which had been his goal, but he wasn't sure what the move would mean for Riley.

And still no clue where she was. If they were withholding food and water. If they were –

Mac pushed himself to his feet, fighting to keep his hand steady as he shoved the phone back into his pocket. The Turkish soldier had melted into the night – he was long gone. No one had noticed their altercation; people knelt in front of the models all the time. The atmosphere around him hadn't changed, but Mac would have sworn it dropped ten degrees.

It took three or four steps before he was able to completely straighten up, and Mac headed for the nearest exit. Once he was out of view of every camera but one, he moved the envelope of money from his back pocket to the inside of his jacket. Then he tugged his shirt back into place, took a few deep breaths, and proceeded towards their rendezvous point.

No sense in making Jack worry any more than he already was.

Mac turned the corner and the little pub came into view up the next block, but there was no Jack Dalton standing in front of it. The person who'd been tailing them from the hotel was nowhere to be seen, but Mac had watched him peel off to follow Jack as soon as they'd split up, and frankly he wasn't sure if it had been one of Aydin's men, to make sure Jack didn't swing around to get eyes on Mac's meet, or if it was Turkish intelligence just being jumpy that two American agents were in town. Either way, the guy hadn't seemed terribly skilled, and he had no doubt that if Jack had led him off just to tangle with him, his partner was perfectly fine.

And if it had been one of Aydin's guys, and Jack had caused a problem, he would have gotten instructions about it by now.

There was no way they'd make a move on Jack tonight. A missing witness could cause a delay of trial, and result in Aydin getting moved to a more secure location. Hakan wouldn't risk it. It was immediately after he broke the colonel out that Mac was more worried about. He didn't believe for a second the colonel's men wouldn't want payback for what Jack did at the manor.

The bargain he made was for Riley's life. Hakan hadn't said anything about Jack's.

Nor had he said anything about Mac's own. The evidence trail led him to believe he'd be used as a distraction himself, and Mac was quite sure the State Department had warned Turkish intelligence they were coming, which could have accounted for that tail. He and Jack were already persons of interest. And the State Department would be quick to distance itself, to make the assertion that he'd gone rogue, especially in light of all the evidence he was helping them create. Matty could probably keep the US agencies from putting a kill order out on him, but he wasn't sure her seemingly endless authority stretched as far as Turkey.

He was going to have to be very careful.

Mac finally reached the pub, and he glanced into the glazed windows, but it was too dark to make out any specific shapes. He almost grabbed his phone to text Jack before he remembered, but frankly, texting Jack would normally be his next move-

"Enjoy the dollhouses?"

Mac very carefully didn't jump, plastering on a half-annoyed grin instead as he turned. "I did actually. There was a castle you'd have really liked. You have any trouble finding the right brand of anti-aging serum?"

The absolutely clueless look Jack gave him almost made him laugh – actually laugh - and he felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude for his partner's presence.

"Your Avon Wrinkle cream, Jack. Remember?"

For a split second, it looked like his partner really wasn't catching on, but then the light bulb illuminated, and he patted the right side of his jacket. "Yeah, I think it's some kinda sports scent. Couldn't read the label, and they package that shit like they mean it over here. Haven't cracked it open yet."

"So . . . you might actually have bought 'old gym bag'?"

Jack grabbed the back of Mac's jacket collar and shoved him towards the door. "Boy, if you're gonna keep takin' cheap shots, you better get in there and buy this senior citizen a beer."

-M-

"I'll tell you the same thing I would tell Jack. _No_."

The size twelve combat boots stayed right on her tail. "Director-"

Matty turned on the man. At six foot one inch, he stood just as tall as the man whose shoes he was trying to fill. When Jack Dalton was on a mission, security for the Phoenix fell to his second in command, Joshua Carter. He was unlike Jack in virtually every way but height. Where Jack kept his hair short save for that kewpie-like mohawk, Carter's strawberry blonde hair was longer, and immaculately coiffed. Carter was naturally more tanned, a California boy to his roots. And his smile, when you could coax one out of him, was blindingly white from all the coffee and tea he didn't drink. She knew from hard experience that Carter could do terrible things to kale smoothies.

But there was one aspect of the man that was a precise match to Jack Dalton. And that was the seriousness with which he took his job.

Agent Carter had offered to 'walk her to her car', seeing as it was nearly eleven and there was a 'personnel issue' he wanted to discuss. There were cameras in the parking lot, but no audio, and it allowed them to speak openly for the first time since she'd summoned him to a conference room earlier that day and read him in.

And now it seemed that 'walking you to your vehicle, ma'am' actually meant 'assign two agents to crawl up your ass and lock you down under house arrest.'

"Yes, Carter. _Director_. That's my title. Do you know what that means?" She was, frankly, too exhausted to get properly angry, but she still cocked her head to the side like she was considering it. "It means I'm your boss's boss. And when I say no, I mean no. The Phoenix could be under surveillance-"

"That's my point exactly," Carter interrupted smoothly. "We have no idea how compromised the Phoenix is, and you could be a target-"

Matty rolled her eyes. "Listen, carrot top, I've been a target for going on thirty years now, I think I can handle it. I don't want some well-meaning agent to decide to do a perimeter walk and tip them off."

In Carter's defense, there was a lot they didn't know. She'd come up with various reasons to look into the areas of the Phoenix that Mac had visited during his early morning activities, but preliminary surveys hadn't come up with much. She couldn't order a full inventory of the labs for the same reason she couldn't order a full search of the Phoenix's network. The initial one she'd had run that morning she'd pretended had been part of an 'audit' that she'd then sent on to the CIA – after a quick call to Marguerite so that she didn't give away that she hadn't asked for it.

As for Riley, her agents on the ground in Las Vegas could only confirm that Riley was not in her hotel room, and her rental car was in the hotel parking lot. Riley's burner phone was in her hotel room, with only her prints on it. If the same hacker who had gone up against Riley last year was involved, Matty knew they weren't going to find any evidence on the hotel security system – or any other – as to how and in what condition Riley had been taken. She was going to have to assume the worst – that Riley had been kidnapped the first evening – and she could be literally anywhere on the globe by now.

She'd gotten Jack's message and his burner phone number from the text-only classifieds messaging group the CIA had set up ages ago, but since then Jack's only communication was that he hadn't gotten anything else out of Mac, and he suspected Mac had had a meet with one of Aydin's men. Mac hadn't given them the first clue where Riley was – if he even knew.

Luckily, tomorrow afternoon her hands would be untied. The grey hat conference ended Thursday, so when Riley didn't phone home, she would have a legitimate excuse to start a proper search, and then lock down the Phoenix network and see if they couldn't get whoever was in it out.

And she wasn't going to blow that because Carter decided he needed to be overprotective in Dalton's absence.

"I know you can, but I would feel better if you had secure transport."

"And I would feel better if I had eight hours of sleep and a massage, but we don't always get what we want, do we." She rooted around blindly in her pocketbook, locating her key fob and unlocking her vehicle. "I'll be back in four hours. Make sure you get some sleep, and that's an order. We have rotating quick response teams for a reason."

Shit was going to hit the fan timed with the colonel's trial. There was a nine hour time difference between LA and Amsterdam, and the trial was going to resume at ten am local time, which was basically in two hours. However, Mac and Jack weren't going to be testifying until late afternoon, and she was hoping that left her just enough time to get a couple hours of sleep and a few things from the house that she was going to need. Until the Phoenix had been swept and cleared of bugs, she was going to have to go old school.

Fortunately she had a whole toybox in her closet just waiting to get dusted off.

"Go back inside, Carter." The parking lot lighting accentuated the set of his jaw, and Matty relented. "I'll text you when I get home, okay, dad?"

The jaw didn't shift much. "Please do."

She wasn't the least bit surprised when he literally waited for her to get into her car and pull out of the parking spot, but by the time she navigated the parking lot and badged out, his shadow was no longer visible in the lot. Rush hour in LA never really went away, even at eleven o'clock at night, and Matty used the Bluetooth connection in the car to start listening to the many voicemails she'd accrued today and hadn't bothered to check.

None were important, and she barely noticed that the reminder that the landscaping company was going to come by in two days to spray the lawn cut off at the end. When the next message didn't autoplay, she glanced at the car's entertainment display, and noticed it was giving her the 'No Signal' error.

Awesome.

Matty glanced at her actual phone, in its holder on the dash as she stopped at a red light. The phone also indicated it had no service. Matty studied it a moment, then looked to her right, where someone else was waiting at the light. That person, too, was staring at their dash-mounted phone, with a finger to their earpiece, and didn't look pleased.

Cell signal problems near Hollywood on a Wednesday night. Someone's head was going to be on a platter tomorrow.

Despite the late hour and the knowledge that she was probably being overcautious, Matty decided to take the long way home. She never saw a tail. Cellular signal wasn't restored by the time she hit the gate for her neighborhood, and Matty drove the block. Nothing out of the ordinary. No utility or moving vans where they shouldn't be. No unfamiliar cars. The house looked undisturbed.

 _Paranoid much?_

Her home security had been set up by the same outfit that she'd had upgrade the CIA's security while she'd been there. She had multiple fallbacks – internet, landline, cellular, even a satellite connection. And the system was smart; if the base station lost the 'heartbeat' of the alarm system, meaning that the internet or landline had been cut, it would trigger an alarm. Her home security reported both to the LAPD and Phoenix, and Carter would have sent a damn helicopter by now if the house alarm had gone off. Hopefully he realized the cellular outage wasn't localized just on her house.

Matty climbed out of the car, fishing out her house keys, and nothing was amiss. The crickets were putting out a steady hum. The alarm was armed and had no information and no alerts on the panel when she input her code.

. . . and that was wrong.

Because cellular service was still disabled, and the panel should have told her.

Matty tucked her house keys back into her pocketbook, and pressed the silent alarm button on her key fob as she did so. The car had both cellular _and_ satellite connections. And while she knew Riley could take out a satellite, she was pretty sure Riley couldn't take down _all_ of the ones that were over Los Angeles at any given time without attracting a lot of attention.

Which meant no one else could, either.

Then she palmed the Beretta Nano she kept in that pocketbook, and headed through the house, turning on very few lights on her way upstairs to her bedroom.

She didn't encounter a soul, didn't hear a sound out of place. As if she was just exhausted and preoccupied, she closed her bedroom door, tossed her pocketbook on the bed, and flipped on the light to the master bathroom. It was one of the reasons she'd chosen this particular house; there was a huge walk-in closet that led to the sink and mirror portion of the bathroom - and the counter was the perfect height for her – before leading into a spa-sized shower room that contained an inset tub as well as a glass-walled shower large enough for her and ten of her closest friends.

She turned on all the lights, shut the door to the shower area, and returned to the closet. Then she headed straight for the wall of hanging suit jackets, and quietly slipped behind them to face the closet wall. The drywall door was heavy, and she eventually had to stuff the gun in the back of her pants to free up her hands. Once she had it moved, she bent and backed into the small space, grabbing the handles that had been glued to the inside of the removable square of drywall.

Then she pulled it back into position, blending seamlessly with the floor molding and chair rail in the closet.

The pinhole that was in the passageway's door was essentially invisible from the other side, and Matty shifted her crouch, pressing her face up to it and peering through.

 _Dalton will never let me live this down if I'm wrong._

It had been known to happened, but only every once in a blue moon. And tonight's moon wasn't blue.

A shadow crossed soundlessly past her, face painted in night camo, his M4 tucked tight to his body. He had eyes only for the closed door to the shower room, and Matty remained perfectly still inside the wall, and waited. She never heard the door open, but in less than sixty seconds he was headed back, this time evaluating the closet carefully. He was wearing a throat mic and radio, no patches on his black ACUs, and Matty didn't flinch as he used the barrel of the M4 to part any collections of clothing that touched the carpeting, including the wall of suit jackets.

Then he backed off, and signaled silently to someone out of her line of sight to continue searching.

So there were at least two of them. Obviously military or ex military, obviously special forces.

 _God dammit._ They must not have gotten all of Aydin's _Bordo Berelilers_ after all. There could be up to four of them, and honestly Matty wasn't sure how Carter's quick reaction team would stack up to them. If she had Jack in her pocket, she'd consider going on the offensive, but with these odds -

She needed to evade and escape, and use the satphone to call in backup like she meant it.

Matty gave them a thirty second head start – by then they should have finished searching the bedroom – and then carefully adjusted her crouch, and pulled off her shoes. She set them silently on the wooden floor of the passageway, and then did her best impression of duck walking down the almost completely black tunnel.

She'd had it installed during the renovations, before she'd moved in. A very cramped little secret passage that would allow anyone her size or smaller to pass unseen from the second floor to the first floor, and from there to the crawlspace of the house, under the kitchen. She'd be exposed from the kitchen to the treeline, or she could hide between the house and the landscaping and try to make it back to her car –

Except she'd left her keys in her pocketbook.

Treeline it was.

The tunnel took a ninety degree turn with the wall, and Matty followed it by touch, moving slowly to keep the awkward position from winding her in the close, stifling space. There was another pinhole in the wall along the hallway, and she paused to watch through it, but no one passed by. If there were more than two, one was likely watching the stairwell, and he wasn't in her field of vision. The others would have spread out and could be anywhere by now.

They could look for this passage all they wanted, tap on as many walls as they could find, but the drywall was no different along the tunnel than anywhere else in the wall, and besides, no one ever thought to tap down low enough. The only thing that would catch her would be radar or infrared, and she was counting on them having the latter. Which meant she couldn't hang out in the walls forever.

Knowing that she'd be creeping down the stairs almost on top of one of them, Matty took a moment to compose herself, wipe the sweat off her face, and steady her breathing. Then she eased herself down the hall, to the next ninety degree bend.

If she was right, there was a soldier right on the other side of the wall.

Matty took each stair gingerly. The men who'd done the work had done everything possible to guarantee that the wood wouldn't creak when pressure was applied. However, it had been constructed years ago, and frankly outside of a couple test runs – and one Christmas party she'd used it like ten times to freak out her employees – she hadn't been back to it. There were the obligatory cobwebs, and plenty of dust, but the stairs themselves were solid and took her weight with no problems.

The actual stairs, the ones that were just a wall away, were not quite as soundless. And someone was moving down them, pacing her almost exactly.

Matty froze, and held her breath, frowning as a tickle of sweat trickled down her spine. A stair creaked, then silence.

Could they hear her . . .?

But then a stair below hers popped, and Matty waited for whoever it was to finish making it downstairs before she continued.

The tunnel was limited in that it could only follow established walls, which meant she had to work her way through the formal hall and living room to make the kitchen, and the trap door that would lead to the crawlspace. She stopped at every pinhole, but didn't catch any sign of movement, nor did she hear a damn thing. She didn't dare wake up her smartwatch to check the time, even though she knew full well the light would not be visible. It would take as long as it took.

But it wouldn't be long before they broke out infrared goggles to try to find her, if they hadn't already. The wall would conceal her somewhat, but she would be an obvious warm spot in an otherwise empty room. The formal living room wall was the longest, and it was there she was going to be the most exposed.

The wall wasn't bulletproof, and she wasn't wearing a vest.

Her lungs seized a little at the implication, and unwanted memories of another dark, cramped space crashed forcefully against her calm.

This was not that. This would not _become_ that. She had time. Backup was coming, the satellite connection wouldn't have failed. Carter was already looking for an excuse.

No time for doubt.

She put a steadying hand on the interior wall of the tunnel and glared into the blackness until her mind was locked down tight and focused. Then Matty edged around the last ninety degree bend and started down the hallway wall towards the living room.

Her knees were killing her, a painful but welcome distraction; she probably hadn't duckwalked this distance since beginning agent training –

About two feet behind her, there was a loud crack, and light poured into the tunnel from a boot-sized hole in the drywall.

Matty barely had enough room to turn around, and she pulled the Beretta from the back of her pants as someone continued pulling off the wall. The tunnel had a ceiling, one of three quarter inch plywood, and something struck it hard, twice, before someone growled something and started to poke their head in.

She squeezed off two rounds – the Beretta Nano only had six – and the soldier jumped back with a shout. Then she ran like hell, as fast as the cramped space and her crouch would let her.

They obviously knew their target was low to the ground, and Matty had to dive and press herself flat to the floor of the tunnel as drywall exploded around her. She felt something burn across the small of her back, then again across the back of her shoulders, and she couldn't help a cry of pain. The hail of bullets stopped, and Matty dared to glance up ahead. With so many holes in the wall, she could see where the trapdoor was, and –

And it was too far. There was way too much debris between her and it. They'd hear her.

Behind her, back at the hole, something metallic thunked onto the tunnel floor, and clattered towards her. The sound of the cannister was unmistakable.

Grenade.

Matty pushed herself up, clapped her hands over her ears, and _ran_.

It wasn't even a two count before it went off, and searing hot air buffeted her, knocking her off her feet. Matty pulled her hands away from her ears, which were ringing, but at least not bleeding, and dragged herself towards the trap door. But the grenade had destroyed the wall, and a vise closed around her bare ankle. She tried to flip onto her back, Beretta still in her hand, but she was yanked backward with the force of a parachute deploying, and then she was slithering out of the tunnel and onto the oriental rug in the formal living room.

She got off a shot; the soldier released her and fell back with a grunt, and Matty scrabbled backwards towards the love seat, towards cover. Besides the guy she'd tagged, now on the ground, someone else was standing in the hallway, and she saw the barrel of the M4 flicker to life.

Two flashes.

She heard them clearly, saw them clearly, but she didn't feel any pain. She froze, more out of surprise than surrender, and the man in the hallway covered the distance between them with long, rapid strides.

"Enough," he spat, in accented English, and he jerked the barrel of his weapon in a sharp gesture. "Toss it away."

Rage rose up in her throat, smothering even the panic, and Matty gave him a good long glare before she did as she was instructed. "You and your men have just made a _terrible_ mistake."

"You are the terrible mistake," the soldier snarled, advancing on her steadily. "You should have been drowned by your mother."

His buddy groaned but made as if to get back to his feet, and Matty scooted backwards towards the love seat as the other soldier bore down on her. His sneer was visible even through the black makeup.

"You are like a monstrous child." He struck out with his boot, more of a shove than a kick, and he pinned her effortlessly to the floor. Matty grimaced and tried to shove his boot off, but she may as well have been trying to move a building.

"Well . . you know what they say . . . about monsters," she retorted, a little breathlessly as he started to apply his weight like he meant it.

He intended to break her ribs. Crush her to death. He didn't want her shot; he wanted to leave a message.

And she was damn well going to leave one of her own.

His face twisted, but he resisted adding any additional pressure to hear the answer. Almost everyone would, no matter what culture; it was ingrained in human social cues to give you that opportunity to finish your statement.

And Matty took full advantage.

He hadn't been paying any attention to her left hand, which was now under the love seat, and she helped herself to the six inch combat knife that was attached flush to the bottom. His leg was perfectly positioned above – and on – her, and in one fluid motion she hamstrung him.

She used his involuntary stumble to roll up under his foot, upsetting his balance, and the M4 went off in his hand as he fell. But she was no longer directly beneath it, and she used the knife to knock the barrel aside. As he finished falling, she lunged up and buried the knife to its hilt in his liver.

The second man was back on his feet and Matty pushed herself up and ran – at him, not away. He'd let his M4 dangle by its strap when he'd taken her round - in the vest, unfortunately - and he reached for his sidearm as she barreled at him. It was going to be close, he was moving faster than she'd thought and he was starting to backpedal –

There was an explosion from the front of the house, and the windows to the patio behind her shattered with gunfire.

Matty dove, rolling under a wingbacked chair for cover, and the sound of automatic fire stopped abruptly. A beat later, she heard a body hit the floor.

"Director!"

She froze, hardly daring to breath, and someone crunched rapidly through glass. Matty rolled painfully onto her side in time to see Agent Folami covering the hallway, and a woman roughly half his height heading right for her.

Agent Keung.

"There may – be two more," Matty managed, and then it occurred to her that she was out of breath.

"Carter and Hannagahn are out front, reinforcements are on the way," Folami called over. With the French doors to the patio shattered, she could clearly hear a helicopter, and Matty started to crawl out from under the chair as Keung slid onto her knees beside her.

"Director-"

"Go. Back up Carter." She held out her right hand, surprised to see it gloved in blood.

The man she'd stabbed.

They needed at least one of them alive.

"Give me your sidearm," Matty ordered, wondering why she sounded so breathless. Agent Patience Keung was Taiwanese, barely over 5'4", and she had petite hands and also preferred weapons with smaller grips. The medic hesitated, then shot a glance towards Agent Folami. He was still covering the hallway, the whites of his eyes stark against his otherwise ebony face, and though he never looked their way, something seemed to pass between the two agents.

Several bursts of automatic fire shattered through glass in the front of the house.

"Now!" Matty barked.

Agent Keung handed over her sidearm – a Springfield XD .45 – and Matty checked the chamber and managed to roll onto to her knees, covering the hallway door as Folami advanced. There was glass all over the floor, and she was barefoot. She wasn't walking anywhere without shoes.

"Patience, see what you can do with him. I need him alive."

Agent Keung, however, was staring at Matty's back in alarm. "You're bleeding-"

"So is he."

The rapid response team's only medic gave her another evaluative look before turning for her other patient, who was lying on his right hip, barely seeming to breathe. His useless leg was pinning his sidearm, preventing him from drawing it, and Keung disarmed him without touching his most obvious injury. Matty blinked in an effort to chase away a little lightheadedness, watching the door for any shadows while Keung worked.

The last time, blood seeping into her eyes had made it hard to see. Her back was burning, but not like it had that night, the rug was much softer than asphalt, and -

"Gimme an ETA on those EMTs," she heard Patience murmur into her radio, and then the medic's eyes were back on her.

It was getting harder to hear. Must have been from the grenade, and her adrenaline wearing thin. "No EMTs." God, her phone was also upstairs in her pocketbook. "Call my personal physician."

"Director – Matty," the agent tried. "I need to check you out-"

Why was it so hard for people to follow orders? "Deal with him-"

"He's been dealt with," Patience interrupted dryly. "I'm not a coroner. Now, let me see."

Damn. _Damn_.

"Get on the radio. Tell Carter I need one alive."

Just one. If she could get the colonel's plan, or at least a piece of it. Maybe intel on Riley's location –

There was another explosion from the direction of the front, and both women flinched. Matty's back was starting to do more than burn.

Gentle hands landed on her shoulders, easing her jacket off, and Matty huffed out an irritated sigh and helped, swapping the gun into her left hand as needed. She was fine, if she'd been badly hit by either bullet she wouldn't be moving around –

Another wave of lightheadedness hit, and breathtaking pain seared across her lower back.

"-ell me what happened?"

The next time Matty opened her eyes, the living room lights were on.

She was on her stomach, with her jacket folded under her face as a pillow. A first aid kit had puked all over the floor beside her, with paper wrappers everywhere, and someone out of sight was muttering quietly in a foreign language.

"Pait, can we –"

" _No_ ," the medic snapped, switching to English. "I will tell you when you can come in. What's the ETA on the doc?"

"Seventeen minutes," Folami sighed, in his deep, resonant voice. "You're the medic, Pait. This is your call."

Matty blinked, and something was pressed into her back hard enough to elicit a groan.

"Sorry, Director –"

"No hospital," Matty managed, when she could, and Agent Keung swam into view. She was wearing blue examination gloves, now, and they were smeared with blood. Her straight, dark hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and her normally impassive face was downright stony.

"Director, you've got several puncture wounds from shrapnel, and I can't tell how deep they are –"

"Only my physician," Matty repeated. It was hard to get much volume, and when she shifted her right arm to try to push herself up, she saw that it was bare.

Of course. Keung had cut off her shirt to treat her. That was why she wasn't letting the other agents in.

It occurred to Matty, suddenly, that she didn't hear any more gunfire. It was quiet, save the far-off sound of sirens.

The fight was over.

 _Not like last time. This is not like last time._

She pointed towards the secretary, which was Victorian cherry, more than one hundred and fifty years old, and looked like it had somehow miraculously been spared any damage from the grenade. Her hand shook. "Bottom wide drawer. Sat phones. I need one."

Patience gave her a long look. "If you pass out again, you're going to the closest ER," she informed her, somehow steely through her normal deferential demeanor, and then she stood and peeled off one of the blue vinyl gloves, crossing the room to the correct piece of furniture.

From the door, Matty heard Leo again. "Is she-"

" _Stay_ ," Keung repeated firmly, and started digging around in the drawer. She paused a moment, as if surprised, and then turned her head a little. "Does it matter which one?" she called over her shoulder.

"No." No, they were all configured for a specific purpose, but some contacts were ubiquitous.

The slight agent brought back two – apparently just in case – and Matty selected the Globalstar device. There was some kind of quiet commotion in the hall.

"Keung, I need you back on coms -"

It was Carter's voice.

Patience frowned and shoved her freely dangling earpiece back into her left ear as the phone booted. Matty unlocked it and laid it on the floor before she started texting – her arm was shaking too badly to keep holding it.

"Have Carter contact . . . Wilt Bozer. I want him . . . to process the scene."

Even holding up her own head was getting difficult. She hated lying on her stomach, to hell with modesty and to hell with her back –

Matty barely managed to get her left arm under her before Keung stopped her with a firm hand. Even gentle pressure on the top of her left shoulder pulled at the wound across her upper back, and Matty hissed.

Patience looked sympathetic, but she didn't let her up. "Try not to move, Director, I've just gotten the bleeding stopped –"

"Carter. Get Bozer here. Now," she added, with as much snap to her voice as she could muster, and the medic gave her an inscrutable look, then tapped her coms.

"Josh, did you catch that?" She seemed to listen for a moment, and Matty rolled her eyes.

"Tonight!" she barked towards the hallway, and then relaxed back to the floor, letting her head fall on her jacket pillow. That took way the hell more effort than it should have.

Crap.

Laying her head down brought one of the dead soldiers directly into her line of sight. "Did you manage to . . . . capture one alive?"

Keung focused back on her, her lips set in a grim line. Wordlessly, she shook her head.

 _Crap._

The medic gave a little sigh, then she quickly scanned the room. Holding up a finger, and obviously still listening to coms, she rose gracefully and stepped off somewhere behind Matty. She heard fabric rustle, and then one of the throw blankets from the couch was draped ever so gently over her back.

"Alright, Leo, Josh," Patience called, and a tall, slender shadow eased around the doorframe. Agent Folami decided to take a position with eyes on the patio, keeping his gaze respectfully averted, and then Carter took Folami's position by the hallway door. He was wearing exactly what he'd been wearing when she'd left the office half an hour ago, with the exception of a tactical vest thrown over his tee, and blood was smeared over both his bare arms.

He didn't seem to be favoring either one. And no one else followed him in.

Matty stared at him a long moment. Her memory wasn't awesome, but hadn't Leo said that Hannagahn was with them?

Carter opened his mouth in a silent sigh, then tapped his coms. "This is Carter, gimme an ETA on that doctor." Then he locked eyes with her. "How you doing, boss?"

She knew exactly what he was asking. And she knew exactly how she needed to respond. Matilda closed her eyes, fending off another wave of lightheadedness, and took a preparatory breath. Her voice had to be strong.

"-atty? . . . _Matty_!"

-M-

Hakan carefully pulled the sliding door closed behind him and shrugged off his navy jacket. He handed it to a man as he passed, then stepped behind the host stand and helped himself to a radio. The moment he put the earpiece in, he knew something was wrong.

"-ve got reinforcements coming. Three vehicles, at least ten men."

He swiftly made his way to the central staircase and descended a level, taking his first right. The formal sitting room looked mostly untouched, save the corner Liris had taken over. Her equipment was staged near the curtains but exposed, and the woman herself was dressed for her day job, a Bluetooth earpiece in her left ear, and a mic hovering in front of her mouth from the right side.

In his ear, he heard a pop, followed by the unmistakable sound of automatic fire. "I lost visual on Tolan-"

"Tolan, answer me!" he heard Feza bark.

Without keying the radio, Hakan quietly walked up beside her. "Report."

The woman didn't even seem to notice him. "Denha, you will lose your exit in twenty seconds."

". . . Gani and Tolan are confirmed down," It was Denha. He sounded furious. "We can't recover them. Fall back."

There was a brief pause, then another pop, accompanied by slightly quieter automatic fire. "You get eyes on target?"

"-down and bleeding. I can't get a clean shot on the medic." Denha's voice was tightly controlled and grim. "Repeat, fall back to exfil."

Liris was staring at her screens – not displaying much that Hakan could interpret, unfortunately. She didn't have satellite; she _did_ have a map up on one screen but it only showed moving signal dots rather than the actual heat signatures of the men. They were on opposite sides of the residence, and there was no indication of where the resistance might be.

He hesitated to ask her twice, letting her concentrate on her task, and finally the woman shot him a quick glance out of the corner of her eye. "Things didn't go to plan."

"Clearly," he responded, and watched the two dots rendezvous on the east side of the residence. "Is their exfil still secure?"

" . . . yes." It was distracted; the windows were appearing and disappearing so fast he couldn't focus on one before the next flashed up. "Target was hit, we can't confirm a kill."

Losses were regrettable, but acceptable as long as the objective was realized. "We won't get a second chance."

"You're right." Her voice was cold. "I was unable to access the Phoenix network. We had to . . . improvise."

Hakan digested that, watching the signals of their two remaining men moving rapidly towards safety. Other windows showed traffic intersections, and in the lower righthand corner, a convoy of three black SUVs ran a red light.

It was certainly disappointing, but this particular leg of the plan was not part of the critical path. It was a setback to be sure, but not insurmountable. "What happened?"

"What didn't." The woman finally turned from the screen, her frustration clear. "Without our ingress point to the Phoenix, I had to take out five cellular towers on top of disabling the alarm, and they still responded within minutes. She must have sent a signal. Probably through a satellite connection." The brunette looked and sounded disgusted. "The _orospu_ knew. She hid in the walls, Gani finally found her using infrared. By the time they did, they only had a few minutes to neutralize her before reinforcements arrived. I think she may have killed Tolan herself."

Hakan swallowed a sigh. Perhaps he should have settled for simply shooting her. "She is injured, though?"

"Yes." Liris was quite confident. "I'm almost certain she was expecting us."

Whether she knew or was simply vigilant was in question. "You believe MacGyver signaled them?"

She knew he was looking for hard evidence, because her outrage subsided somewhat. "I was never able to make contact with my program. Either someone unplugged the USB drive, or the code was detected during a sweep and isolated."

Though he had seen the American plug in the USB stick with his own eyes, that was no guarantee that he hadn't determined another way to counteract Liris' tool. He was nothing if not resourceful.

Not openly. Not enough to risk being found in breach of their agreement.

Not enough to risk the woman's life.

Hakan had been watching him very carefully, but his eyes and ears were limited by technology. The USB drive had always been a gamble, because there had been such a delay between deployment and use. By itself it was not enough to know for certain.

And if his men had been successful in fatally wounding Director Webber, it wouldn't matter.

"Do your best to ensure Feza and Denha return safely."

She gave him a curt nod. "There's no indication their flight has been compromised."

"And your other traps?"

The woman hesitated, then toggled through a few windows. "Untouched."

Which would refute the claim that Angus MacGyver had gone back on his word, and warned his Phoenix Foundation what was about to happen. Surely if they had found the USB drive, they would have started investigating the other data stored on it.

"Good."

The sergeant left Liris to it, still listening to the radio with half an ear as he crossed the wide sitting room. The lounge beyond it was sparsely populated, with a few of his men dotting the tables, engaged in various activities. Behind the bar, a smartly dressed woman stood with her back ramrod straight, very carefully studying the surface of the polished wood. He could see that she had already cleaned everything she could possibly clean.

It wasn't as if she was serving alcohol, and a silver carafe of tea, with neat stacks of white cups, sat on the edge of the bar's counter, in easy reach of the men.

She didn't move or acknowledge him with more than the most furtive of glances, and Hakan crossed in front of the bar, pushing through the double doors to the auxiliary kitchen.

His men were in position, and the cooking staff were all quietly occupied. As he'd instructed, everything requiring the use of knives had been moved to a single station, and Major Sahin was monitoring it, leaning against a nearby freezer door with his sidearm held casually in his right hand. Hakan caught his eye and gave him a quiet nod, and the major returned it.

Truly, there was nothing to do now but wait.

Hakan returned to the lounge, helping himself to a cup of tea before taking a table by one of the large windows. He watched the city without seeing it, listening to his earpiece as his men made it to the hangar without further interference from Phoenix.

It was maybe twenty minutes later that Hakan's phone vibrated.

He pulled it free of his pocket, and saw that the message had come from the American agent's cloned phone.

 **034985 – enact Myrrh protocol**

No further information.

Hakan headed back to the formal sitting room, and Liris. He didn't even have to ask.

". . . it's a mass text," the analyst murmured, almost to herself, her fingers flying across the nigh-silent rubber keyboard. "I can't determine the origin."

Only a few seconds later, another text from the agent's phone flashed on the screen. It was from Wilt Bozer.

 **R u ok? Call me ASAP!**

On one of the monitors, two previously black windows lit and a crowd of people and part of a ceiling swung crazily into view. Hakan focused on the forward camera angle, and that image finally settled on the American's face, his expression one of confusion as he unlocked the phone. Several people passed by his side, as if he had stopped moving in the middle of a crowd. His eyes flicked across the messages, then his expression opened slightly into barely concealed shock. He looked away, then the phone was dropped to his side, and Liris unmuted the audio so they could hear.

There was a loud murmuring – clearly they were at the courthouse, and in a room with many people. A very authoritative voice was instructing someone in broken Turkish to use the lockers on their left for personal items. MacGyver, when he spoke, was hard to pick out of the ambient noise.

". . . Jack . . .? Is this . . .?"

Hakan closed his eyes, focusing on the slightly higher pitch of the older operative's voice, but he couldn't pick it out of the noise.

"Sir, place your personal items in the locker to your left-"

"Hang on." It was louder, and Angus. Probably addressing the court staff member who was trying to usher him through to the witnesses' chamber. His phone would be confiscated before he entered, which would leave them with limited eyes and ears, only what Liris could get with the in-court cameras and the audio from the listening devices on his own men.

Hakan opened his eyes. "Who's been monitoring the Americans since this morning?"

"Koray," Liris replied briskly. "He reported nothing out of the ordinary."

The camera on the outside of the phone showed that the American was moving towards a wall, away from the throng of people being processed, but it was artfully angled in such a way that Dalton was not visible.

"Jack," Angus tried again, more insistently.

Finally, Hakan picked out the other American's voice, though he was not addressing his partner. "Carter, Dalton, what-"

Both the images spun as MacGyver was forced to turn and deal with a uniformed member of the court. "Sir, I need you to –"

"One second," MacGyver snapped, and then the ambient noise died down significantly as a door closed.

The images didn't change, one was a wall without windows, and the other was a trouser leg. The audio snapped as if the phone itself had just creaked.

"Sir, you're needed in the witness chamber, the prosecutor will be addressing the group shortly-"

There was an impatient huff, and then the audio crackled as the images spun wildly. For a brief second the forward camera showed the American again, glaring down at them, and then another hand took the phone and they watched it being tucked into a small metal locker. Something else was tossed down on top of it, so that both cameras were now covered, and audio was muffled.

Hakan ignored it. "Show me his face."

The analyst silently did as requested, and the video image was rolled back to a clear, unpixellated image of Angus MacGyver, in a grey suit and pressed white Oxford shirt, glaring at them.

"Enlarge it if you can."

All Hakan needed was his face.

The American's mouth was slightly open, clearly in irritation at being forced to leave his partner with his question unanswered. The room was well lit, yet the American's pupils were slightly dilated. One of the very few permanent lines in his face was between his eyebrows, and it was puckered. More importantly, the skin around his eyes and over his cheekbones was taut, and his nostrils were slightly flared.

Adrenaline, preparing for fight or flight. The emotion wasn't fury yet, there was still too much disbelief in his expression.

Hakan stared at the American another long moment. "The mission was successful. She is dead, or expected to die." That was exactly what they needed. "Once you are certain our men are clear, go. You don't want to be late."

Liris made a dismissive noise. "I can be as late as I like."

Hakan barely suppressed a smile.

-M-

Well, I guess now we know who the secondary target was . . . that and the fandom seems in general scared of actually doing anything to Matty, so was the actual show, too, until she used pysops and a cigarette lighter to crash a car. I felt like that was a gap that needed to be addressed.

So, in summary, a boatload of incriminating evidence has been created to show that Mac is working willingly with the rebels to free Colonel Aydin. Jack's trying to get a plan together to help Mac but they both just suffered a serious setback, and unless Mac can come up with a new plan, right now, once he walks into that courtroom it's showtime.

Also, this chapter was insanely difficult to write. I ended up writing the attack on Matty from three other perspectives before I finally went with just her. I hope I didn't confuse anyone with that – next chapter will reveal the technical details.


	5. Chapter 5

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

He'd forgotten how much of the language he'd picked up during those three endless weeks.

 _Sit down. Go over there. Come here._

Most of the people in the chaotic queue were like him. They hadn't been the ones giving the orders then, and they weren't now.

Jack was a warm and familiar presence behind him, and MacGyver obediently shrugged out of his blazer when instructed – in English, not Turkish – and set it in a plastic bin, along with the contents of his pockets.

The witnesses for the trial of Colonel Batuhan Aydin had been directed to a rear entrance, to save them the media circus that was the main entrance of the courthouse of the Hague. As such, security was slightly more lax, and rather than step through full body scanners, they were simply wanded. Mac continued through the queue until it was his turn, and the device chirped when it settled in front of his belt buckle.

Mac gave the guy an inquiring look.

The Dutch security guard shook his head in reply, continuing to run the wand down his legs. "You can leave your belt on, sir."

"Nice change from the TSA, ain't it?" a low voice quipped from behind him, and Mac shot his partner a look of agreement when he was cleared to collect his things.

One blazer and wallet, one swiss army knife, one smartphone, one travel sized bottle of hand sanitizer, and two paperclips. He made a small production of gathering them as an excuse to stick closer to Jack, but outside of the same chirrup when it came to the belt, his partner was clean.

They'd gotten very good, over the years, at smuggling things past most standard security measures. But looking at Jack in profile as he also collected his stuff, Mac could honestly say Jack didn't have a gun, no matter how small, tucked into his pants behind that belt buckle. A ceramic combat knife somewhere on his person, fully possible, but not a firearm.

Which meant Jack would have to acquire one _inside_ the courthouse.

The small throng of witnesses, all transferred from the Hotel Des Indes in a convoy of unmarked black SUVs, was then herded down a large, crowded hallway towards the witness chambers. Mac was able to easily align what he was seeing to the floor plans he'd studied on the plane, and he stayed towards the outside of the group, buttoning his sports jacket on autopilot. He nearly collided with a woman who looked almost as confused as their group did, and Mac reached out a polite hand to steady her.

She apologized to him in stilted German, not Dutch, and Mac replied in kind with a friendly smile. The courthouse was quite large and had been built intentionally to put the fear of God into anyone who walked the halls. Massive Gothic ceilings stretched out above them, dotted with burnished bronze light fixtures that did little to chase away the gloom of all the darkly stained wood panels and severe, pew-like benches that dotted the walls. It was an intimidating place, more so if you didn't speak the language.

He could understand her nervousness. Most of the other witnesses spoke Turkish, which couldn't be further from Dutch, and the entire group looked a little skittish as they were steered to the right into a slightly narrower hallway.

If Jack had noticed his little stumble, his partner didn't say a word about it. He looked at ease despite the necktie, seeming to take in the opulence around them, but Mac knew Jack was mentally counting exits and cameras. A set of ornate double doors were standing open halfway down the hall, and Mac followed the others in at a gesture from a court official.

They had entered an antechamber for the witness chamber, and Mac knew that the main court room was just through the wall of small blue lockers. Court would already be in session. They were the second group of witnesses, those meant to speak after the lunch recess, and Mac could see that a good dozen of the lockers were already in use.

There were a _lot_ of Turks who had encountered Aydin and his men. Mac was certain that the defense's witness chamber held just as many, ready to defend the colonel and his actions. That was the problem with a civil war; both sides were wrong, and both sides were right.

Mac glanced back when the double doors closed, and noticed Jack's eyes lingering on the security guard there. He was outfitted like most Dutch police officers, including handcuffs, a radio, a baton, and a bottle of mace. Plenty of toys to manage even the most distraught of witnesses.

MacGyver made a mental note of the mace and was about to head to the lockers with the others when he noticed an absence at his left shoulder. He turned back to find Jack had stopped halfway across the room, his phone in his hand. His eyebrows knit for a split second, but then he smoothed his expression into something alarmingly neutral.

It was the expression Dalton sometimes wore in Afghanistan, when he was listening to coms and heard something he didn't like.

Half a beat later, those brown eyes locked onto his.

Something was wrong.

In his own pocket, Mac barely felt his phone vibrate, and he pulled it out. There were two text messages, and he unlocked the phone.

The first was from a blocked number, and it was short and to the point.

 **034985 – enact Myrrh protocol**

He didn't even glance at the second.

Myrrh Protocol.

That was . . .

Mac looked back up at Jack, then cut around the people between them, letting the hand holding his phone drop to his side. That couldn't be right. It _couldn't_. He'd warned her, she knew he was compromised, even if it wasn't related to Aydin she would have been being careful, she would've-

There was _nothing_ he had done that would implicate Director Webber in any of this.

That couldn't be right.

One look at Jack's face told him his partner wasn't on the same page. Jack looked as serious as Mac had ever seen him.

Mac spoke in a low voice, hoping the ambient noise would mask him from his phone's speaker. ". . . Jack . . .? Is this . . .?"

 _Is this real?_

Dalton simply turned his phone around so Mac could see the display.

Same text message.

He knew his phone was compromised. He assumed Jack's could be by now, since it was in proximity to his and Riley – hell, even Nikki – could hop from phone to phone.

Surely it was a trick.

Behind him, their court-appointed babysitter switched from Turkish to English. "Sir, place your personal items in the locker to your left –"

"Hang on," Mac called over, as politely as possible, as Jack hit a button on the phone and raised it to his ear. His partner turned slightly away, hiding his lips as he muttered a password to code in and get a secure line. It wouldn't stop Hakan from hearing everything, if they'd hacked Jack's phone, but at least it would stop anyone else from tapping it.

Jack listened attentively, and if anything, his expression hardened further.

If Myrrh Protocol had been enacted, every agent coding in would hear a pre-recorded message before they hit the switchboard operator.

" _Jack_ ," Mac hissed at him. His partner opened his mouth a second, then subtly shook his head. Whatever message he'd been listening to, it went on to a human. "Carter, Dalton, what-"

Joshua Carter. Jack's second in command. Currently acting head of security for Phoenix.

If Jack's code in had gone straight to Security, that meant –

That meant Myrrh was executed and working as designed.

MacGyver was very familiar with the protocol. He'd not only named it, he'd written it, him and Jack, right after Thornton had been unmasked as Chrysalis. Losing the director – even with the short amount of time they'd had to prepare for it – had led to significant impacts to ongoing missions around the globe. The existing protocols hadn't been revised in years, since all the attention had been on recovering from a full organizational breach like they'd had with Nikki. Losing the boss hadn't really been on anyone's radar.

The sheer impact of it across the intelligence community. The number of organizations that needed to be alerted so Phoenix assets around the world could still count on local law enforcement and military aid if they needed it. And the assets themselves, to be notified via a secure channel so they could trust any new orders were coming from a legitimate authority. Myrrh was only to be enacted in a worst case scenario.

Only if the Director had been completely removed from play. Either legally, by having committed a serious crime herself and being arrested, or by being physically incapacitated.

And there was no way anything he had done on site, in the labs or anywhere else, would have resulted in her being arrested. Possibly investigated for collusion, but there was no way the investigation could have already proceeded to a full arrest.

And yet clearly it was happening.

Someone tapped him gently on the shoulder, and Mac whirled around, startling the officer behind him. The man recovered himself quickly. "Sir, I need you to-"

"One second," he snapped, and only then did he realize that he and Jack were the only two people left in the room. On the opposite side, the door leading to the witness chamber was being pulled closed. In a moment, they were going to be forced to join the other witnesses. Phone calls be damned.

He gripped his phone hard enough to make the plastic creak.

Hakan had done this. That was what he was doing last night, why he didn't go to the meet in the park himself. Somehow they'd set Matty up, and by the time she got it untangled – and she _would_ get it untangled – it would be enough of a distraction to Phoenix to let the colonel get that much further ahead of them.

 _Dammit!_

It meant he and Jack were on their own, at least for a little while. And that meant that there was no Matty to tell Dutch intelligence – or anyone else – that he had warned them he was compromised. That he was trying to save another agent. When local law enforcement responded, they were going to think he was Aydin's man through and through, and they were going to treat him accordingly.

The official cast a glance back at the door as it was firmly pulled close. "Sir, you're needed in the witness chamber. The prosecutor will be addressing the group shortly . . ." He made a pointed gesture at the lockers.

Mac turned back to Jack. The older agent was silent, staring through the wall across from him, and his left hand, the one not holding the phone, was clenched in a fist.

The official beside Mac raised his eyebrows to go with the gesture. _Now, if you please._

Mac huffed in frustration, then did as he was told. He took his sweet time, knowing he was buying it for Jack, and he glared at his phone as he handed it to the attendant, throwing his wallet over it to block the camera as well as the microphone. If Hakan didn't have access to Jack's phone, no sense in letting him eavesdrop on even one side of the conversation.

But it didn't seem to be a conversation. Carter was talking, and Jack was listening.

Mac shut the locker and pocketed the plastic key, casting another glance at his partner before allowing himself to be shooed to the door on the far side. The prosecutor's assistant, whom he had met yesterday, was taking roll, and she shot him a relieved smile when he walked in.

"Luka Morrow," she called to confirm, and he inclined his head to acknowledge her.

"Ethan Darby?"

"He's, ah, he's finishing up a call in the other room," Mac offered politely.

She bobbed her head, and continued with identifying witnesses. It wasn't twenty seconds later that the door behind him opened, and Mac glanced casually over his shoulder.

Jack shot the assistant a charming smile as her eyes flicked to him, then he came to stand on Mac's left. A quick scan of the room showed there were no cameras. While any one of the witnesses could have been blackmailed by Hakan, just as Mac had, and been wearing bugs, no one really seemed to pay them much attention, and there in the back of the room, they had as much privacy as they were going to get.

Mac kept his voice low. "What's going on?"

Beside him, his partner was silent.

He gave him a few seconds, assuming he was also looking for cameras, but when Jack still didn't reply, Mac finally looked at him.

Jack's lips were pulled back in that easy grin of his, that didn't go higher than his cheekbones. He'd shoved his hands into his pockets. "You let me worry about that, bud," he finally murmured, not quite meeting his eyes. "Now, while we got ten seconds to ourselves, you wanna let me in on the plan?"

Mac stared at him incredulously. "Jack, just tell me-"

"I'll handle it," Jack drawled under his breath. "Now spill. How many guys gonna be in there?"

Jack wasn't looking at him straight on, he was hiding his hands. Hiding his tells.

He was rattled. Whatever charges they'd hit Matty with, it was bad.

. . . unless it wasn't charges at all?

Legally removed from her post - or physically incapacitated.

He knew his partner saw the series of rapidly worsening scenarios flood across his face because Jack stepped closer to him. "Mac –"

"Mr. Morrow?"

They both looked over to see a junior attorney hurrying around the group to approach them. He looked like he'd stepped out of the 1800s, in a black flowing robe with a white pleated tab that fell from the front of the collar about twelve inches down the front like a large, rectangular necktie. His timing could not have been worse.

"Mr. Morrow, I'm Jurist Albring. We met yesterday briefly –"

Mac nodded distractedly. "Yes, Mr. Albring, if you could just give us a second-"

The man went through the motions of looking sympathetic. "I'm afraid I can't, Mr. Morrow. We've decided to move you up the list of witnesses, and you and possibly Mr. Darby will be testifying before the lunch recess. If you would please follow me, a courtesy break has been invoked and we have just a few minutes to enter the chambers-"

Before MacGyver could protest further, he and Jack were ushered towards what had looked very much like a bookcase until it opened to reveal the courtroom.

"You'll be called up to the stand in the next half hour or so," the young man informed him in a hushed whisper, and laid a bracing hand on his shoulder. "Remember your coaching. You're going to do just fine, Mr. Morrow. Just fine. You're quite safe here. And your courage today will help ensure that no one else will have to face what you faced."

Then the young man turned towards Jack. "And you'll be testifying right after him, Mr. Darby. Just as we rehearsed . . ."

It took all of Mac's willpower not to shake off the hand on his elbow, and instead he let himself be guided towards what he would have said was the jury section if this court was at all similar to the ones in the United States. But because this was a war crimes tribunal, the jury was actually a panel of representatives from other NATO countries, and Mac found himself steered into tiered witness seating, four rows of ten seats apiece. There were empty seats in the upper row, and if it wouldn't have been painfully obvious to Hakan's men what he was up to, that was where Mac would have headed.

However, there were cameras in this room – more for security than to record the events themselves – and plenty of people watching from the public observation section. Whatever tiny window he'd had to speak with Jack was gone.

They were truly on their own.

Mac reluctantly took a seat beside an older woman, who gave him a nervous smile that he returned, and then Jack sat on his right and settled stiffly into the hard, uncomfortable chair. Across from the witness box, the defense and prosecution were milling around, taking advantage of the break to consult with their support staff. Between them, with his back to the observation section and directly facing the judges, sat a man so tall he appeared to be the same height as the guard standing beside him.

The colonel looked fairly relaxed, all things considered. Aydin was in his own box, with room to stretch out, and his body language was comfortable and calm. He didn't seem all that interested in the witness box; he was watching the left side, the jury's side, and Mac tried to track his gaze.

The representatives from NATO were also taking the opportunity to check their messages. Unlike the witnesses, the jury was permitted in special circumstances to retain their electronic devices, and most were responding to emails or bent to the side in hushed calls. The US representative was unfamiliar to Mac but had to be from the State Department; her placard identified her as Dr. J. Stahrr. Stiff and severe in her black suit, she was chatting with the UN representative beside her. That woman had her hair tucked away in a light blue headscarf, and Mac found himself wondering if she was a practicing Muslim, or whether there was any hope she was going to take it off later. He could use it, they were typically made of silk and-

Mac felt a light tap on his right leg. They were seated closely enough, and with enough people around them, that it was likely very difficult to see Jack's hand there. Mac continued studying the room while receiving Jack's message.

H-O-W-M-A-N-Y

Besides the colonel, he could only positively identify one. One who wasn't even attempting to be subtle.

His friend from the park. Who was staring right at him.

Mac held his eyes for a long moment, wondering if this was meant to be a signal to him – and to do what, he had no fucking clue – and then the man turned and looked pointedly at the security guard standing in the upper left side of the room, above the tiered seating of the NATO representatives. The guard was far too pale to be Turkish, at least not ethnically, and unlike the guards that had been in the witness chambers, this one was wearing a firearm. Mac could assume without looking that the officer behind him was similarly armed.

 _Well, no shit_ , he glared back at the Turk. The soldier's thick lips pulled back in a smile.

And then the man completely ignored him.

Mac knew Jack hadn't missed the exchange; maybe Jack was meant to see it, and the Turk was blatantly identifying himself with the intent of luring Jack out of the way. Jack gave him a quick, hard tap, then a long pause, then another. Not a letter, then; simply a count.

He'd made two. Mac couldn't tell if he was also counting Aydin or not.

MacGyver gave the room another once-over, somehow unsurprised to find his shadow wasn't there.

-M-

It was official. Being held hostage _sucked_.

Riley absently rubbed her left eye, blinking a few times afterwards and focusing on the bowl by the door. They'd replaced it with another after she'd drugged herself into a stupor the first time, but now that she was onto them about the drugs, and refusing to eat, they had simply left it there to turn. The message was pretty simple.

You'll eat what we give you, or you won't eat at all.

She wasn't going to get fresh paste until she ate the stuff they'd brought her . . . yesterday? Her abdomen was still sore enough from the kick that she had a hard time telling hunger pangs from straight-up pain.

It was too much to hope the efficacy of the drugs would fade with time or evaporate, and Riley pushed herself to her feet and ignored the bowl, heading into the bathroom for a cup of water. She'd gone a few days without eating in the past, and this wouldn't be any different.

They weren't planning on keeping her long term. They weren't doing any of the things she knew they'd done to Mac. They didn't want her to hack something for them, or to give them credentials to get into Phoenix. They were going to hang onto her until her team did whatever it was they were supposed to do for Aydin, and then they were going to kill her.

And there wasn't much she could do about it.

Riley drank several cups of water in quick succession, setting the cup back onto the sink top and staring at the drain in the dim. There wasn't much light in the bathroom, just whatever made it around the corner from the single light bulb in her room. Not enough to see how the hot water knob was attached to the fixture; she'd tried to channel her mental Mac but no amount of fiddling with the knobs or faucet had gotten her anywhere close to a tool or a weapon.

And she had a feeling tearing up the fixtures in the bathroom – or trying to break into the cabinet under the sink, which was locked - wouldn't get her much more than a beat-down. And possibly no more water to go with the almost no food.

She'd have to attack her guard. There was no other way to get out of this.

Riley looked at the bowl of paste again. She could mix it with water, maybe throw it in their face in the hopes the salt stung? No way were the sedatives strong enough to take someone down in a fight; it had taken at least ten minutes for her to feel the effects the first time, so the drugs they were giving her were useless against them.

She stared thoughtfully at the bowl for another moment, then went and retrieved it. The paste had hardened into a kind of chewy crust, and she picked up the glob and walked back into the bathroom. Then she dropped it into the toilet and flushed it.

If they thought she was drugged, they might slip up. Say something. Come close enough that she could actually get the drop on one of them.

That done, Riley decided not to return to her far corner, but instead let herself fall more in the middle of the room. She hoped the sound of her body hitting the floor would pique someone's interest, but after a few minutes of laying there, she found herself disappointed.

Oh well. Clearly they were entering the room occasionally; sooner or later someone would poke their head in.

Riley concentrated on simply relaxing, hating that she still felt dopey, even now. Whatever it was wasn't making her nauseous, just fuzzy and lethargic. If she had a clean set of clothes and any amount of trust that they wouldn't choose that moment to come for her, she would seriously have considered getting a shower. It wasn't that she was sweating much; the room wasn't all that uncomfortably hot, and it never seemed to change temperature, something she was crediting to the obviously thick walls. She just felt . . . gross.

Not just sticky-haven't-showered-in-days-oh-and-no-toilet-paper gross. The kind of greasy gross you feel when medication oozes out of your pores.

Gradually Riley's left arm started to fall asleep, but she didn't really care enough to bother shifting. Instead, she passed the time by idly listening to the passing cars, and the chatter of pedestrians outside the building.

A car honked.

A dog barked.

 _That dog is like clockwork_ , she thought muzzily. Every time a car honked, he barked.

It was always the same car, too. The pitch of the horn never changed. It was European, so it caught her ear. The whole thing was kinda like the house trance she listened to sometimes when she was working. Just a pleasant background track with a few sounds here and there to keep it from getting too repetitive. Usually a snippet of dialogue from a movie, or sampled lyrics from another song.

That dog was a sampled lyric.

She listened to the track for a while, and then she realized that she'd fallen asleep. Right about that time, she also woke up.

Nothing about the room had changed, except the bowl was gone.

She'd fucking slept right through it.

Riley groaned at herself in annoyance, rolling onto her back. Her left arm was completely useless; she tipped her head over to look at the dead limb, and the room swam a little.

. . . wait.

She'd . . . she'd flushed the paste . . . hadn't she?

Riley picked up her head a few inches, confirming that she was exactly as dopey as she thought she was, and then settled back onto the floor, staring up at the light bulb. How was that even possible? She hadn't eaten it, she was sure of it. She remembered getting up, getting a cup of water, not taking the sink apart, dumping the paste –

She'd had a couple cups of water.

Just like she had the first time she ate the paste, to wash down all the salt. Just like she had when she first woke up in the room, right before she'd had a –

Nap.

So it was the water? Or the cup, she thought muzzily. Maybe when they brought her food they put some kinda powder in the cup.

So that put eating _and_ drinking off the menu.

Riley drifted in and out a few more times before she finally fully woke. Her mental Mac was having a field day with theories, but he'd basically broken it down into two simple experiments for her, and since she had literally nothing else to do, Riley eventually picked herself up off the floor and stumbled into the bathroom.

She took the cup off the sink and carried it back into the main room, standing under the light bulb and inspecting it. But it was just a cup. Beige like everything else. No handle. Some kind of plastic, she had a feeling if she broke it it would crumble into a zillion pieces, none of which would be big enough to use as a weapon. She couldn't see or feel any kind of residue in it.

Despite that, she took it back to the sink, scrubbed it under the running water with her fingers as best she could, then filled it up and slugged it down.

If she got drowsy again, the drug was in the water. If she didn't, now she knew she needed to wash the cup every time she used it.

"Okay, Riles," she murmured aloud, her voice rough with disuse, "time to find out if you just roofied yourself."

Again.

She had no way to mark the time, so she just paced the room diagonally. Somewhere on the other side of the wall, she heard the shriek of brakes that could use new pads. It wasn't long after that before a bell tolled, and the call to prayer was broadcast once again.

The call was the same melody every time, and the guy singing it was pretty consistent. Sometimes the warbles came out a little differently, but that was about it. At this point she was pretty sure she could chant along with him if she was inclined. When it was done, at least she knew two and a half minutes had gone by.

It was quiet a moment, then she heard someone shout with laughter.

It still didn't give her the first clue where the hell she was.

The voices were too indistinct to hear the language. She assumed it was Turkey because the soldier spoke Turkish, and because he was in desert camo. But it didn't feel hot enough – no, maybe not _dry_ enough – to legitimately be the desert. That hotel they'd stayed in for the Dubai op, the cold water tap had been so hot she'd actually set the shower on hot water because the stuff from the hot water tank was actually cooler. Now, Dubai was ridiculously hot, but the cold water tap in her bathroom was pretty cool. She would expect it to be a little warmer if it was really that hot out.

And the stupid dress. Why make her wear traditional Muslim garb if no one could see her, and everyone who did knew full well she was a prisoner?

At some point, they were going to move her, or otherwise make her somehow visible to the people outside. It was the only thing that made sense. The niqab would prevent even the best facial recognition software from picking her up. Maybe that was what she should wait for. Pretend to be a good little scared drugged American, and when they came to move her, she could move herself.

Clearly there were cars out there. And people. She wasn't isolated like Mac had been. If she could get out of this room, there was a good chance she could either get help or get lost in the crowd. Get a vehicle. Better yet, get a phone.

She just had to wait for the right time.

And hopefully not too much longer. If she couldn't eat or drink, she was going to get weak pretty fast.

Riley paused a moment, then let her head fall back on her shoulders, and rolled it back and forth. The now-familiar swimming feeling was there. Not as bad as it had been when she'd had two or three cups of water, but definitely there.

Her mental Mac gave her a nod of approval. It wasn't good news, but the experiment had been a success. Now she knew they were lacing the water with sedatives. Could be one of the reasons that the cabinet was locked. And why the shower had such crappy water pressure.

Only one way to find out.

-M-

"And what happened then?"

MacGyver shifted a little in the chair, but his voice was steady and sure when he responded. "The colonel walked me up to the bodies to confirm they were dead. He called them war criminals."

The prosecutor nodded solemnly, soaking the court in a pregnant pause. Jack let his eyes rove around the room again, looking for anything. An expression. The set of someone's jaw. Anyone else who was casing the room like he was.

That was their colonel Mac was talking smack about. If it had been Matty –

Jack stuffed that thought to the side, as far back as he could get it.

It wasn't true. Not until he saw it with his own damn eyes. Matty had read Carter in, he knew Jack wasn't secure. It was a play to make Aydin think his men had pulled it off.

 _Which means there must have been an actual attack._

Big fuckin' deal. Bigger and badder men had gone up against Matilda Webber, and they always lost.

 _If it was the same guy who was skulkin' around Mac's place, he was good. Maroon Beret good._

Didn't matter. Matty was one tough cookie. If US special forces couldn't take her out, no way in hell could anyone else's.

 _Carter's voice had been strained. He'd been yelling._

'Course he'd been yellin'. Even if all they managed to do was put a couple bulletholes in Matty's front door he'd've been shouting his fool head off.

 _But if it was real –_

It ain't, he snapped at his brain. There was no way in hell Matty Webber was dead. He didn't care what bullshit Carter had fed him. She was too damn ornery to die, and even if it did turn out to be true, she was such a pain the afterlife would kick her right back out again.

Internal dialogue settled, Jack forced himself back to the present. The mission at hand. He couldn't afford to lose focus now.

Not when he still wasn't sure what the fucking mission actually _was._

Up on the stand, on the judge's left side, Mac shifted again. He was keeping both his feet firmly on the ground, but his hands were fiddling with a paperclip. Whatever shape it was taking, Jack couldn't make it out from his spot, but what he could make out were the subtle flicks of Mac's wrists as he worked.

It was what they referred to back in Afghanistan as their SS code – sandbox shorthand. Mac had developed it to allow him to respond to Jack when he was in a situation where he couldn't speak, or even whisper; typically when he was armpit deep in a bomb with the bombmakers potentially nearby, and he knew Jack was watching through the scope. However, it had other uses, such as whenever they had to sit through a briefing longer than ten minutes, or pretty much any time they wanted to make fun of somebody who was still in earshot.

Right now, Mac was using it to _finally_ give him some intel. Mac had fingered one of the defense's assistants as loyal to Aydin, and once he had, Jack had immediately agreed. The guy wasn't big or bulky by any stretch, but the way he kept his papers squared away, and his utter lack of fidgeting screamed army logistics. That was a man who liked to have everything in order and was used to intensely boring shifts. There was also a certain careless grace about him that told Jack he knew how to move.

Besides the guy smack in the middle of the observing public, Jack figured they had at least one more man, and he'd eat his shoe if the guy wasn't in the witness box with him right now. Most of the people around him were Turks, and it would be very easy to pass yourself off as a victim rather than a perpetrator. There were only three armed guards in the courtroom – flanking the judge in the two back corners, and one by the door to the main hallway – and clearly the guy on the defense's team was going to go for the guard behind the NATO officials, and the guy in the middle of the crowd was going to take out the guy in the back.

That left the guard behind the witness boxes to be dealt with. Technically as soon as anyone got their hands on a gun, physical placement in the room was less critical, but you didn't want a shootout when the guy you wanted to keep alive was right in the fuckin' middle of everything.

As for the colonel, his body language hadn't shifted at all. He showed no sign that he knew anything was going to happen. Right now his eyes were on Mac, and his expression was one of polite interest.

His partner was doing a bang-up job of ignoring the asshole.

"What happened after the helicopter crashed?"

Mac hesitated. "Ah, honestly I can't remember very well. I was moved into the trunk of a . . . I think an SUV. They covered me with bags of supplies so no one looking into the vehicle would see me."

"And did you know where they were taking you?"

Mac mutely shook his head.

The prosecutor gave him an understanding nod. "At this point did you believe that your colleague, Ethan Darby, was dead?"

Mac glanced his way, drawing a few of the NATO jury to look at him as well. Jack figured Mac had already come to the same conclusion he had about the Turks – one of the guys sitting right there with him was with the colonel. Though his partner studied the box for several moments, his fingers stilled on the paperclip.

Jack flashed him an easy grin, but Mac's fingers didn't move. He couldn't pick the guy out either.

"Yes," Mac finally said, clearly. "I thought he was dead. I thought I'd be joining him."

"And Colonel Aydin, was he with you in the SUV?"

Abruptly a siren wailed to life, climbing in pitch like the whoop of an air raid alert, and then petering out before repeating. Around the courtroom, emergency lights began to blink, and Jack was on his feet before the announcement even started playing through the PA system.

"Please evacuate the building-"

One glance at Mac, still on the witness stand, told Jack he was as surprised as anyone. The shocked look faded quickly, though, and Mac looked right at him, and then straight to the back of the room. Many people had gotten to their feet, and confused voices were quickly edging towards panic.

The large Turk, who had been standing in the middle of the observation section, was nowhere to be seen.

His partner couldn't have been clearer. _Go deal with him!_

The guard that had been standing by the colonel had him by the arm, and Aydin didn't seem to be resisting him. The lawyers – including the one Mac had already pointed out – were torn between trying to figure out if it was a false alarm, or gathering up their notes in case they did need to evacuate. The armed guard by the NATO group wasn't taking chances, and was ushering them out a back hallway, and the judge himself was being spirited away by the bailiff.

Whatever was supposed to go down, whatever it was Mac was meant to do for them, it was happening right now.

"Jack!" He heard Mac's voice, loud and clear over the noise, and his partner gestured. "Go!"

No. No, if he left now, that just gave Aydin another crack at Mac. He'd already let the kid down once, let 'em get their paws on him, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let it happen again. He'd promised, he'd _promised_ –

Matty's words from the conference room ran through his head. _Mac wouldn't be doing what he's doing if he didn't think he could get her out of this._

Mac had a plan to get Riley out. Just because he didn't know what that plan was didn't mean it wasn't brilliant and it wasn't gonna work.

But that was before Matty -

Jack hesitated, and Mac vaulted nimbly over the railing of the witness stand, one eye on the colonel and the other on the soldier playing defense assistant. That guy was pretty wiry, he and Mac were probably equals in weight. The blond shot him one more look, and Jack growled aloud but did as he was told.

If Mac _had_ been roped into playing a part in this jail break, then at least he could guess where his partner was most likely to lead Aydin and his goons.

And he had something he needed to go pick up on the way.

Once Jack stepped over the witness box railing and entered the main flood of people, he lost track of Mac – and the colonel – completely. Court officials were trying to manage the flow of bodies, and it was child's play to avoid the idiot who'd stuck them both out in the witness box. Jack slipped into the public observation group, and then all his attention was on the people in his immediate vicinity.

A crowd was a wonderful tool for knifing your target in the back and walking away.

Jack made it into the main hallway, where the alarm was significantly louder. The evacuation warning was being repeated in multiple languages, but it was clearly just a recording. There was no haze, and he didn't smell any smoke. Power was still on.

Despite the apparent lack of danger, the hallways were very close to panic. Jack found himself unwillingly carried forward by the throng around him, and he struggled to hold his position, trying to get his bearings. They hadn't entered the courtroom from the main entrance, so he wasn't exactly sure where the 'closest trashcan' was, and he was about to kick himself for writing such vague instructions in the first place –

There.

He managed to ease his way to the far wall, and Jack stepped into the little alcove with the tall, cylindrical trash can. It was austere and heavy duty, like everything else in the place, and he eyed it a moment before he just grabbed it by the inner lip and pulled straight up. The bronze-painted aluminum came free easily, and in the brightly polished reflection he caught sight of a silhouette moving up rapidly directly behind him.

Jack changed his grip on the trash can lid and swung it like Babe Ruth with the bases loaded.

If it was just some poor soul trying to get out of the crowd, he'd definitely apologize.

The guy had started to bring up his hands but he wasn't able to fully block, and Jack sensed more than saw something small going flying into the crowd. He ignored it, keeping his grip on the interior opening of the trash can lid and jabbing the guy in the chest with it. The Turk fell back into the stream of people, some of whom were just starting to notice what was happening, and he went down under a flurry of briefcases and legs.

Jack expertly flipped the lid so the bottom was facing him, and sure enough, the two extra mags were still taped to the inside – next to another strip of tape, flapping in the breeze. The gun itself was nowhere to be seen.

 _Damn_. That's what he had sent flying into the crowd.

Rather than try to recover the gun – there was no way, not with so many people in the hall – Jack instead waded back into the crowd after the guy he'd clocked. Unfortunately, he wasn't where Jack had left him, but a rock solid hit to his right kidney clued him in to the guy's location. Jack grunted but didn't go down, and he threw an elbow back, trying to make space.

His opponent anticipated, backing off and using the elbow for leverage, and Jack felt his right foot kicked out from under him. He pushed off with his left foot as he fell, shoving the guy back towards the wall, but it wasn't enough to escape the chokehold. They both ended up on the ground, and Jack managed to get his hands around the Turk's other wrist as he tried to complete the hold.

It was exactly the same situation he'd found himself in the very first time he'd met nineteen year old Angus MacGyver.

Unfortunately for him, this guy was no scrawny teenager, and it was going to be next to impossible to break the stovepipe of an arm he was barely keeping away from his throat. He didn't even try. Instead, he let the guy slip everything but his wrist away, and then Jack reached up and yanked the guy's thumb out of joint.

By itself it wasn't enough to get him loose, but he used the broken joint as leverage, forcing the Turk's left arm higher, and then he dropped his left elbow solidly into the guy's ribs. It took three hits to loosen him up, but he had nowhere to go and no way to block, and Jack's vision was starting to narrow before he finally got enough space to roll away.

Jack took a glancing blow to the head from someone passing by, but he ignored it, rolling quickly to his feet. His opponent had done the same. It wasn't the guy who had been making eyes at Mac from the observation area, which meant that guy was still on the loose, as well.

Jack bared his teeth at the man. There was no hope of taunting him over the alarm and the cries of people who had _definitely_ noticed the ruckus, so Jack just dove for him.

Whoever he was, he was in on this little plan. He'd know where the colonel was going to be spirited off to. Better yet, he might know where Riley was.

They exchanged a few blows, more feeling each other out than anything. By now they'd cleared a decent amount of space for themselves in the hallway, and Jack kept one eye out for the gun he'd accidentally slung somewhere into the hall. The Turk hadn't pulled one yet – he was dressed like a businessman, sans the suit jacket – but Jack didn't believe for a second that he wasn't armed.

He wasn't going to go for his own knife until he had to. A knife fight would end with one of them dead, and that wasn't what he wanted. Not yet anyway.

"Hou op! Ga op de grond liggen!"

Jack knew enough supermodel to translate what was being said, and neither he nor his opponent moved as he heard a security guard running up the hallway from behind him.

And then the Turk smiled at him.

-M-

Mac didn't wait for Jack to obey, he simply vaulted the wooden railing around the witness stand and headed right for the man pretending to be an assistant attorney. One more glare from him finally sent Jack on his way, and Mac tried not to imagine what was waiting for his partner out in that hallway.

Jack was going in eyes wide open, and Mac had no doubt his chances were better out there than in here.

To that end, Mac marched directly up to the man – and his suspicions that it was one of Hakan's were confirmed when the man stepped away from the defense attorney with a little smirk on his face – and Mac grabbed him by his left arm.

"If anyone in this building dies, the deal's off," he growled, loudly enough that he was quite sure the man heard him. The Turk's expression shifted to a sneer, and he looked pointedly down at Mac's hand around his bicep. They regarded each other for a second, then the soldier spoke.

"If you do not wish to see blood, American, clear a path."

The Turk shook off his hand – and Mac didn't make it easy – and Mac turned immediately for the guard guiding Aydin towards the secure hallway through which the accused were typically transferred. The colonel was watching the NATO jurists being evacuated, seemingly unaware that his men were in the crowd. His pace was slow due to his restraints, but Mac could tell the colonel was dragging even more than necessary. Long gone were the traditional chains; the colonel was wearing a Kevlar locking waist belt with fixed wrist restraints, as well as matching ankle restraints.

And Mac had been counting on it.

No one was paying him any attention as he hurried to catch up. Everyone else on that side was being evacuated to a different door, and it was unsettlingly easy to approach the officer. Though the Dutch guard looked deceptively small next to Colonel Aydin, he was actually quite large, and Mac wasted no time in plucking his maglight from his belt. As the guard turned in surprise, Mac flipped it so he was holding it by the light, flashed the guy a sympathetic wince, and nailed him across the jaw.

He went down without a sound.

Mac kept the flashlight, crouching over the fallen officer and helping himself to the man's mace. It was a gel, with a twenty foot range, and without even acknowledging the colonel, Mac turned on his heels and followed the same path the NATO representatives had. Their guard was still at the door, ushering the last of them through, and he hadn't seen what had happened to his colleague.

The Dutch officer did, however, spot something behind Mac he didn't like, because he suddenly shouted, and he let the door he was holding open start to close in lieu of reaching for either his firearm or his own mace. Mac thumbed up the safety on his can and let it rip. He held his breath as he approached the screaming man, and knocked him out as soon as he could. Mac borrowed the officer's handkerchief, quickly wiping down the unconscious man's eyes and face. Mace was non-lethal, but left in his eyes could cause permanent damage. Then he grabbed the pair of handcuffs, and secured him to the nearest railing.

By the time he came back up, he saw the colonel massaging his now unbound wrists, and the phony attorney was more than halfway to the other side of the room. A woman in a bright floral print dress had the last guard in a chokehold, and Mac bellowed to be heard over the alarm.

"He's out! Let him go!"

Her dark eyes shot towards him contemptuously, and he saw her shift her wrist position.

To break his neck.

Abruptly she stilled, then after a beat she frowned and let the unconscious guard slither to the ground. He fell out of Mac's line of sight, and she bent over him, but the phony attorney made a sharp hissing sound, drawing Mac's attention.

"First responders are four minutes out," he announced, and Mac acknowledged the information, then quickly surveyed the room. The vast majority of people had made for the main exit. Only a few people remained, including the prosecutor, who seemed frozen to his spot, standing just behind his table with his arms full of papers. His eyes were wide, and he was staring at the fully unrestrained colonel.

Aydin, too, was sweeping the room, and didn't seem to even care that his prosecutor, the man trying to get him sentenced to life in prison if not death, was no more than fifteen feet away from him. However, the phony attorney's attention shifted towards him, and Mac made a sharp gesture with the mace, still in his hand.

"Go! Get out of here!"

The prosecutor balked a little, then seemed to realize that someone was headed directly for him, because he finally started backpeddling. The Turk jumped at him, a simple taunt, but it made him drop everything he was carrying and sprint for the nearest exit.

The Turk grinned, then crossed the now empty courtroom towards his colonel, and Aydin's eyes finally found Mac's. His expression was no different than the one he'd been wearing five minutes ago; polite and calm. Then he smiled broadly.

"Have a change of heart, my American friend?"

He had to call loudly to be heard over the alarm, and the phony attorney handed the colonel something small, that he tucked into his ear.

So they _were_ on coms.

"What do you think?" Mac shouted back. Then he gestured to the kevlar straps the colonel had discarded on the floor. "Bring those with you."

With that said, Mac turned his back on them and headed back to the guard he'd maced. By now the smell was still strong but not overpowering, and he helped himself to the guard's identification badge and held it up to the electronic lock. The LED flipped from red to green, and he pulled open the door, glancing impatiently over his shoulder.

To the Turks' credit, they weren't lingering. Besides the phony attorney and the woman – and she'd been sitting right behind Jack, well positioned to take him out had she wanted to – a third man was approaching from the back of the room. Whether he'd taken out the guard back there or simply ensured the man left was unclear. What was clear, however, was that he had a gun in his hand.

So did the woman. The phony attorney relieved the closest unconscious guard of his and handed it to the colonel, and as he did so Mac could also make out a gun tucked into the man's waistband.

The Turks converged on him rapidly, and Mac stuck his head into the hallway to make sure it was clear before stepping through. The evacuation route was clearly marked, and no one was in this part of the hall. There were, as he expected, plenty of cameras, and Mac cast a look over his shoulder at the phony attorney.

"What about your other men?" He wasn't actually sure there was more than the one, his friend from the park last night, but it didn't hurt to find out if he was right about that.

"They will find their own exit," the Turk told him curtly, then gestured impatiently for him to get moving.

So Jack was up against two or more. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Mac forced himself to focus on the problems that he _could_ solve. "Have your man take out the cameras in the northwest corner of the building, and any CCTV cameras outside with a view of the west face."

Technically he didn't need those cameras cut – clearly the Turks had enough firepower to repel any guards, at least for the next four minutes. He just wanted to see if they could.

To find out exactly how good their Riley really was. And to start to build a trail for Phoenix to follow.

If Phoenix was going to follow it at all. With Myrrh in place, there'd be an acting director, and after all the evidence against him came to light –

Jack was all he had.

 _Stay away from this, big guy. Just this once._

The Turk gave him no indication it was going to be done, and Mac got his bearings and took them towards the west side of the building. Just as he'd expected, there was a janitor's closet along the way, and Mac pulled the two paperclips out of his pocket and made quick work of the lock. He scanned the shelves a moment, and that was when he felt the first tiny shred of doubt.

All the labels were in Dutch.

A quick survey revealed _bleekwater_ was probably bleach – bottle shape and opacity matched – and _ammoniak_ was easy enough. The carton of white powder had had its label partially ripped, and a quick whiff told him it was some type of detergent. Based on the picture on the label, there was some furniture polish called _meubeline_ , and Mac grabbed the white plastic bottle and scanned the label. N-butyl acetate, and acetone.

That'd do the trick.

"Three minutes, American."

"You take care of those cameras yet?" he countered, and pressed the bleach and furniture polish into the hands of the nearest Turk, who happened to be the third man that had approached from the back of the courtroom. He also had the colonel's kevlar restraints slung over his shoulder. The soldier grudgingly accepted the items with an icy glare, and Mac completely ignored him, turning back to the shelves. He found two bottles of the correct sizes, emptied their contents into the utility sink, and set them to drain.

Behind the door he found the industrial vacuum, and he relieved it of its neatly coiled extension cord. Another hung on the back of the door, and Mac grabbed that one as well, slinging them both over his right shoulder.

Then he recovered the empty bottles from the sink and headed back out without another word.

As he passed the colonel, his arm was caught, and he gave Batuhan Aydin a sharp look. Very little about the colonel had changed; he was still clean-shaven, still with short-cropped salt and pepper hair. His face had lost some of its tan, but he was still naturally darkly complected. He hadn't shed a single pound of muscle, and his smile remained wide and friendly.

"If any harm should come to my men, you will _beg_ me for that bullet."

Mac let his eyes flash, pitching his voice low. "If any harm comes to Riley Davis, I'll make you eat it."

The bullet the colonel had promised him when they'd first met, after he'd had Jack and the Chevaliers shot. The one the medic had nearly put in his chest before Jack had miraculously appeared and saved him.

The colonel's smile broadened, and then he barked out a laugh. "You still have your spirit!"

"And about two and a half minutes, so if you'd like to get out of here, _colonel_ , I'm gonna need you to let go of that arm and do everything I tell you without question."

Aydin chuckled, then released him, and MacGyver turned away from him immediately. He was a little taken aback at the ferocity of the fury rising up in his throat; clearly he'd underestimated how much this was going to rattle him. And it was a distraction he didn't need.

What he _did_ need was . . . bingo.

Mac strode rapidly down the hallway towards the only office door with a glass window, and confirmed it was indeed a small infirmary. It was typical in Dutch courthouses; a sick room to deal with anything that might happen to the court officials – cold, flu, panic attack. It was stocked with the basics, just like a school infirmary, and Mac grabbed a dark brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide and tossed it to the phony attorney. Then he headed for the coffee machine on the nurse's desk, pulling it open to find the brew basket empty but ready for action. He nicked the coffee filter and folded it, shoving it into his pocket as he led them around the corner to the west side of the building.

This hallway too was empty, and Mac estimated distances and did some quick trig before he selected a door about thirty yards down the hallway. All the doors had electronic locks, and Mac waved the security guard's badge in front of it.

No joy.

Behind him, one of the soldiers spoke. "Step aside."

Mac scoffed. He didn't need to turn to know the man was holding a gun. "Besides the sound of the gunshot, security would be able to tell at a glance which room we're in."

Instead, Mac reached into the waistband of his pants, behind his belt buckle, and withdrew the length of metal tape he'd slipped inside the fabric there. It snapped open like a tape measure as soon as he removed the rubber band, and Mac pulled out the coffee filter and quickly folded it into three sections. Then he used the rubber band to attach it to the end of the tape like the fully spread tail of a peacock.

He took a step back, nearly tripping over whoever was behind him, and Mac cast a quick glance back with a frown. The soldier backed off – and he was indeed holding a gun – and Mac crouched in front of the door and slipped the tape, coffee filter first, underneath it into the room beyond.

The Turk looked supremely unimpressed. "You hope to lure someone to the door?"

Mac cocked an eyebrow at the man, swiping the tape to the right and left. "I _hope_ no one's in there. If anyone is, I'll deal with them," he added sharply, well aware that the gun was still in the soldier's right hand.

He fed just a little more tape under the door, then twitched it back and forth again. Sure enough, the electronic lock clicked, and Mac reached up and turned the knob. The door opened easily.

Thankfully, whatever official worked in this office had had the good sense to evacuate with the others, and Mac straightened, recovering the coffee filter from the end of the metal tape as he surveyed the room.

Behind him, he heard the Turks enter, muttering to each other. It only took them a few seconds to spot the motion sensor above the door.

Electronic locks were engaged at all times, meaning the person inside the room would have to find their fob every time they wanted to leave, or hand it to their visitor. To mitigate this inconvenience, motion detectors were typically installed inside the room, presuming whomever was inside was authorized, and automatically unlocked the door as people approached it to exit.

And a motion detector couldn't tell the difference between a human foot and a coffee filter waggling around on the floor.

Mac shook out his right arm and let the extension cords fall to the floor. "Someone tie these two together with a double overhand knot," he instructed, looking around the office. He was hoping for a floor lamp, and he was not disappointed.

"And get that window open," and he tipped his chin towards the wall of windows behind the desk. The floor lamp in the corner was just as ostentatious as every other fixture in the building, heavy and oil-rubbed bronze, and Mac pulled out his swiss army knife and hefted the lamp out from behind a wing-back chair.

Behind him, the soldier in front of the window made a disgusted sound. "We're rappelling to the street?"

Mac shook his head, unscrewing the lampshade. It was a good assumption – the courthouse was built on a hill, they were technically four stories above the street, and the knotted extension cord would definitely be long enough. But they'd be arrested instantly. "Not anything so slow." He got the lampshade off and discarded it onto the chair, pulling the bulb assembly free and cutting the power cord that ran the length of the lamp tube.

Then he turned back to the room. The phony attorney was tying the extension cords together, and the third soldier had started to run a combat knife along the window seals, so he nodded to the female soldier, and held out the multitool. "Strip the pedestal off this lamp. You should find some kind of ballast screwed to the bottom – pull it off. We need the empty tube and pedestal."

She stared at him for a long moment, coldly, and Aydin spoke to her quietly in Turkish. It was longer than a short command, and Mac finally realized that she didn't speak English. The look she gave the colonel was respectful, almost awed, and then she plucked the swiss army knife from Mac's hand and set to work.

Mac cleared some space on the desk and pulled out the two empty bottles, then recovered the hydrogen peroxide, bleach, and furniture polish from the floor. The peroxide was a 3% solution, and Mac closed his eyes briefly, using the stoichiometry as a sort of calming mantra.

This was either going to work, or it was going to be the very last thing he ever improvised.

Fluid volumes firmly set in his mind, MacGyver combined the liquids in the smaller bottle, pouring each down the side of the bottle to jostle the solution as little as possible. He capped the mixture, rolling the bottle gently to combine them, and then unscrewed the top enough to allow gases to escape, and set the bottle very carefully on the side table beside one of the wingback chairs.

" _No one_ touch this table," he said clearly, making eye contact with everyone in the room. "And when you get that window out, set it down _gently_. Do you understand?"

The Turks glanced at each other a moment, then continued with their tasks. The phony attorney had finished up with the extension cords, and Mac pointed to the kevlar restraints the colonel had so recently shed. "Cut those into five equal strips, and tie knots on both ends of each." They wouldn't be long enough for loops, but looking around the room, Mac didn't think hand or upper body strength was going to be an issue.

Outside in the hallway, the alarm slowly died down. It was too soon for the building to have been fully evacuated, so someone must have figured out it was a false alarm.

Or, the first responders had shut it off so they could actually hear.

Mac didn't need to look to know his four minutes were up. Dutch SWAT was now on site.

The woman was making good progress with the lamp pedestal, and Mac glanced around the office again, taking stock. It was clearly a lawyer's or judge's chamber; a heavy mahogany desk filled with papers sat near the center of the room, obviously locked. Four sitting chairs were scattered throughout the room. The walls were lined with bookcases filled with uniform tomes, and the ones at standing level held ornate bookends and knick-knacks. Most of the bookends were quartz or some other type of stone, but a pair of brass sailboats caught his eye, and Mac picked one up.

Despite the fine point of the main sail, the brass was fairly thick, and they were set into marble slabs to further add weight. There was a slit between the stylized main sail and the rear sail, but both were thick enough that the slit wasn't terribly sharp.

Unfortunately, the sails joined at the top with only a scant inch of cast brass.

There was also a set of brass owls, but they were never going to work. Mac flipped the sailboat over in his hands, and saw that the brass was bolted to the marble.

It was the best option available.

Mac went back to the woman, who had just finished freeing what looked like a molded block of concrete from the bottom of the lamp. "I need the boat off the marble," and he held the sailboat bookend with the bottom facing her, so she could see the bolt. This one she figured out through miming, and with a dark look at him she accepted it.

Mac checked back on the solution, easing the cap off the bottle and peering inside. Pretty much whatever was going to react had, and Mac crossed the office back to the desk, where Aydin was assisting the other Turk with removing the glass from its windowframe. Mac rescued the other empty bottle and the coffee filter, and tucked the filter into the open end of the bottle. Then he very, very carefully poured the contents of the first bottle into the second.

When he was finished, he had about half a teaspoon of white film on the coffee filter.

"You made an explosive," the colonel observed, from far closer than anyone that large had any right to have silently crept, and Mac tamped down on his flinch as best he could.

"Yes. A very unstable one," Mac snapped softly. "You should try _not_ to startle the person holding it."

"My apologies, American." Though the tone was taunting, the colonel too had lowered his volume. "Have you always 'startled' so easily?"

He knew bait when he heard it, and Mac set the bottle containing the coffee filter down _very_ gently on the table. The colonel had taken a step back, content for the time being to give him his space, and Mac tried to ignore him.

His little trick with the building alarm had obviously run its course, and if they hadn't yet, it wouldn't take much longer for them to realize Aydin's guards hadn't reported to the correct evacuation point. He only had a few more minutes before someone would start using the cameras to figure out what the hell was going on. And a whole bank of them out in this section of the building – if Hakan's hacker was good enough to have pulled it off - was going to bring SWAT running.

It was going to be close.

The woman had finished with his sailboat, and Mac knelt in front of the wingback chair on her left, reaching under it and yanking a spring and some of the cushion foam loose. He straightened the spring, then folded it in half twice and gave it a twist before accepting the disdainfully offered sailboat. He stuffed a small, heavily compressed slug of foam into the bolt-hole on the bottom of the brass boat, and then stabbed it in the center with the folded spring. He tore another handful of the foam from under the chair, then grabbed the long tube that had previously been the body of the floor lamp, and he crushed the foam as tightly as possible into the tube.

Then, he loaded his sailboat dart. The spring was heavy duty and kept the brass sailboat more or less fixed on the end of the lamp body.

He handed the front half of his sailboat harpoon to the phony attorney, whose face now showed honest surprise. The soldier was a weapons specialist; at this point, of course he'd figured out why the pointy end of a large hunk of brass was sticking out of what was essentially a super narrow, super long mortar tube.

Mac gestured at the credenza in front of the window. "Use the quartz bookends to build a mount. Your target is a hundred and thirty feet due west – uh," and he closed his eyes briefly as he did the conversion, "it's 39 and a half meters."

Jack would have had a few choice words for him, giving a measurement in feet to military personnel -

Part of him wanted to look out the window, straight down, to see if Jack had already anticipated him. The rest of him knew better. Just in case Jack actually _had_ , he didn't want to draw any more attention to his partner than Jack was already liable to draw to himself.

-M-

Jack ducked his head just in time to take a shattering chunk of drywall to his right ear.

Heh. He never thought he'd miss having a com in it just to keep debris out.

Dalton shook his head sharply, as much to dislodge the crumbles of drywall as to communicate to the guy beneath him. "You stay put," he shouted over the alarm, keeping his left hand flat against the guy's vest.

Damn good thing he was wearing it. Jack was downright jealous.

It had saved the officer from two of the three rounds, but Public Enemy Number One had figured it out quick and the officer had taken the third round in the lower back, right where the plate ended. Jack wasn't sure the guard was ever going to walk again, but he'd be damned if he left the guy in the hall to catch a round in the face. The guard was looking at him, still not sure what to make of him, and Jack shot him a quick grin and firmly took the nine mil out of his shaking hands.

"I'll give it back in a minute, man, promise," he muttered, taking a quick glance around the wall. Neither Turk took a shot; they knew he was just getting the lay of the land, and given how careful they were being with ammunition, he guessed they didn't have much more than his new pal Dutchie here.

They weren't going to need it. Public Enemy Number One was going to keep him pinned in the alcove while Kidney Puncher breezed up the hall and finished them off. Jack sent two rounds out blindly, about crotch height, and heard a heavy wooden door open, then swing shut.

Back into the courtroom.

Shit. He could pop out of any one of the doors across the hallway.

The officer beside him panted and tried to pull himself slightly higher up the wall, and Jack helped, sliding quickly out of his blazer. "You know that tune, pal? Pass the Dutchie?" He kept his tone conversational as he wadded up the suit jacket and shoved it behind the guy, prompting a cry of pain. Jack helped the officer lean back against it, hoping it would at least slow the bleeding a little, and patted the halfway struggling officer down for additional weapons. He found a spare mag and tucked it in his pocket. Silver lining - at least he was gonna make a smartly dressed corpse.

"Funny story – it was originally Pass the Kutchie, which is a joint. Ain't much about this country that don't link back to pot, huh?"

The officer, if he spoke English, didn't respond, and Jack pulled the can of mace off the guy's belt.

It wouldn't be his first choice – or his second – but beggars couldn't be choosers. "Stay," he said, and pressed his left hand against the guy's chest again, gently. "You get me? _Stay_. Blife here."

He scooted up as close to Dutchie as he could get to maximize his cover, then he used his left hand and chucked the cannister of mace down the hall, towards the last known location of Public Enemy Number One. Jack gave it a beat – just one – for the Turk to mistake it for a grenade, and then he sucked in a breath of clean air, leaned out as far as he dared, and squeezed off two rounds right where he knew the mace should hit the ground.

The cannister ruptured, spewing its gel mace out in a thick aerosol cloud, and Jack darted out into the hall. He needed to get a little distance before they flanked him, and if the Turk was dumb enough to breathe that shit, well, he wouldn't live long enough to cough.

Jack finally sighted the guy, but he'd taken cover behind a stone column and Jack didn't have the shot. He sent another round downrange anyway, to keep the guy pinned, and made it across the hall to a stone column of his own. As soon as the Turk saw his target had made decent cover, Public Enemy Number One retreated from the cloud of mace, rolling for the hallway he'd originally popped out of, and Jack took the shot.

He clipped him, but that was all, and Jack swore and used the last set of doors to duck into the courtroom, and see if he could get the drop on Kidney Puncher.

When it wasn't full of people, the courtroom was simply massive. It also looked pretty damn empty. Mac, the colonel, everyone was long gone, and Jack methodically worked his way through the room. The whooping alarm was finally starting to wind down, which Jack was going to take as a sign that either whatever had caused it had been found to be merely a distraction, or first responders had arrived and they found the damn thing as annoying as he did.

Time to go. He was already way behind Mac and if his partner planned to get out of the building before SWAT showed up, he didn't have much time.

Jack made his careful way across the courtroom, towards the only door in the direction Public Enemy Number One had gone. Chances were they were also retreating, knowing time was short, and they were going to meet up with their colonel at some point. Following the blood trail seemed like his best option. Jack didn't hear or see a thing, but something made him hesitate beside a limestone pillar, and two rounds shattered the rock right where his face should have passed had he kept moving.

 _Damn_ they were good.

They were moving to pin him between them – and they had the high ground, one had to be up on the jury's tiers, the other was near the judge's bench. Jack backed up a few yards, intent on working his way up behind the witness box. He had six rounds left in the mag, plus another fifteen in the spare, and Jack was pretty sure that meant that for once, he had more ammo than they did.

He used the six bullets for cover, sprinting to the next column, and swapped to the fresh mag. There was a good twelve foot length without decent cover of any kind between the observation space and the witness box, just the wooden railings for protection, and Jack got himself ready for an Olympic-worthy dash.

Behind him, multiple wooden doors banged open.

" _Beweeg niet! BEWEEG NIET_!"

Jack froze, knowing his back was fully exposed, and across the courtroom, he saw the door behind the judge's chair slowly edge open.

God _dammit_! If he was arrested now –

Jack chanced a glance over his shoulder, but he was fucked. At least six dudes in tactical gear had charged into the room and three of them were going to be on him in seconds.

Dalton plastered a relieved smile on his face. " _Yes!_ Colonel Aydin's guys, they're back there –"

Dutch SWAT wasn't buying.

"Weapon on the ground! _Now_!"

Jack shook his head sharply, but he did point the gun at the ceiling and move his trigger finger. "Colonel Aydin, he's headed that way-"

"Drop it! Drop it now!"

One tac team member took a knee, steadying his rifle, and Jack locked eyes with the guy. Then he gritted his teeth and obeyed.

That guy wasn't going to take a chance on him, and he was no good to Mac if he was dead.

Jack put up his hands, but it didn't mean he had to shut his mouth. "Dude, the bad guys are that way-"

"On the ground! Face down!"

Only when he saw at least two of the Dutch SWAT team head in the direction he indicated did Jack do as he was told, and he permitted himself to be pinned and cuffed. "I'm Ethan Darby, with Reuters, those guys were shootin' at the guard outside –"

He was pulled to his feet and hustled out of the courtroom. The first responders had worked fast; Dutchie was already nearly hidden behind three other people, and Jack craned his neck as he was hauled towards the main entrance of the courthouse. "Dutchie! Tell 'em, man!"

He wasn't sure if the guard even heard him, let alone was still conscious enough to speak. It didn't matter. Jack was going to be held until he could be cleared, and it would be hours from now.

Or possibly never, if they actually reviewed all the camera footage. Which they were probably going to do.

If Myrrh was truly in effect, he could be looking at spending the night in jail. If that happened –

If that happened, picking up Mac's trail would be almost impossible.

He was the only agent in country, the only backup Mac had. And that damn kid was going to get himself killed. No way did Aydin's guys let him live, even if he did everything they asked.

"Hey, are you listenin' to me?! They took my partner, Luka Morrow, he's a witness-"

"We'll take your statement at the station," one of his two politie escorts told him curtly, never loosening his grip. Their handcuffs were the hinged kind, rather than bracelets separated with chain, and significantly harder to manipulate. "Please remain calm."

"I am plenty calm," Jack retorted hotly. "And I'm tellin' you, they took a hostage!"

They rounded the corner towards the main entrance of the courthouse, and Jack saw a veritable army of people gathered around a terrified looking woman, wearing the same jewelry on her wrists that he was. She looked vaguely familiar, and was nearly screaming in rapid-fire German while the contents of her bag were being carefully examined by men in shoulder-length biohazard gloves.

German.

The woman Mac had literally stumbled into on the way in.

Several of them were huddled around an object; it was too small for Jack to make out what it was, but they had what was obviously a pocket Geiger counter out and damned if the thing wasn't making the same noises his partner's MacGeiger counter had back in Chernobyl.

Whatever it was they thought she had, Mac had been the one to plant it on her.

His partner hadn't just been roped into participating in the jailbreak. Mac _was_ the jailbreak.

-M-

MacGyver ever so gently turned the pedestal the final half-rotation, fully tightening it. Some of the hand sanitizer had leaked out of the hole where the power cord had originally been, and he scooped it up and absently rubbed it on his hands, checking the sightline.

The sailboat harpoon was lined up as best he could estimate, and the soldier had done a good job with the mount. It would generally stay on target. And in this case, generally would be good enough.

Presuming, of course, the pedestal didn't explode and kill them all with shrapnel.

He gave the phony attorney a nod, and the Turk tied off one end of the extension cords into the slit between the two sails. Mac reached into his back pocket for his wallet and fished the silver space pen out of the fold. He tucked the wallet back into his pocket on autopilot – it wasn't like he was going to need it, but it was a firmly ingrained habit – and then unscrewed the front part of the pen, exposing the ink cartridge.

"Do you intend to write a message?"

Mac spared the colonel a quick look. "Space pens are able to write underwater, upside down, and in zero gravity because the ink cartridge is pressurized." He tipped the barrel of the pen and the cartridge slid freely into his hand. "The ink itself is a gel that melts into a thick liquid when exposed to friction." Mac dropped the pen body and used his thumb to break the ink cartridge at the writing tip. Thick, dark brown goo immediately began to ooze out of the cartridge.

Mac quickly drew lines of the gel in the center of each of the five strips of kevlar he'd laid out on the desk. "We're going to use it as a lubricant between the kevlar and the extension cord to overcome any drag between the two surfaces until we have enough speed that it won't be an issue."

Otherwise, between the rubberized surface of the extension cords, and the patterned surface of the kevlar, they might get hung up at the very top, or when they passed over the knot securing the two extension cords together.

Once he'd spread all the gel, Mac tossed the spent cartridge on the desk and looked over the harpoon gun, one last time. Then he caught the phony attorney's eye, and nodded to him.

"We're ready to go."

He didn't feel as though he needed to explain any further what was going to happen, and the soldier picked up the neat, doubled coils of extension cord, looped in an electrician's knot, and let the cables dangle out the window. It would put the least drag on the sailboat harpoon, but it would also tip off anyone below that something very unusual was happening up in this office.

When that was done, Mac grabbed the matchbook he'd found among the knick-knacks on the bookshelf, and struck a match. He held it at arm's length, as far as he could get from the end of the pedestal, where there was still a bead of hand sanitizer globbed in the power cord hole. He motioned for everyone to stand back – and then saw that it was unnecessary, everyone including the colonel had already drawn back to the walls – and he took a deep breath, and touched the match to the sanitizer.

The alcohol in the hand sanitizer caught at once, and Mac barely had time to yank his hand away before the fire had ignited along the line of sanitizer inside the pedestal and encountered the explosive-laden coffee filter.

Everyone in the room flinched at the boom, which was louder than Mac had expected – probably due to the contaminates from the furniture polish – and by the time he got his eyes open again, the sailboat was a twinkling object at least fifty feet away. The arc was true, and Mac watched as it sailed over the building directly across the street towards the one beyond it, and then smashed into that second building, kicking up a small cloud of dust. It had struck just above a set of double windows.

Even better, the end of the extension cord that had been tied around the windowframe was still there.

As long as the sailboat had embedded itself deeply enough into the stone façade of the building to hold their weight, they had themselves a zipline.

The Turks quickly converged on the desk, each taking a strip of knotted kevlar, and Aydin made a broad, sweeping motion towards the window.

His meaning was clear. _After you._

Which was just fine with Mac. Except for the woman, he was the lightest of them. If it was going to fail, it would be after a few of the heavier men went.

Or, y'know, the first time any weight was put on it at all.

Mac grabbed the last strip of kevlar and stepped up lightly onto the windowsill, concentrating on putting the line of gelled ink in contact with the extension cord, rather than looking down. Hakan wasn't with them, but he knew his fear of heights was relatively evident to the casual observer, and he would be damned before he admitted weakness in front of any of them. As soon as he was sure of his grip, Mac eased his weight onto the cord and picked up his feet, and focused only on the other end of the cable.

 _If you're down there, big guy, I'm sorry about this._

Jack was safer on the outside, following the breadcrumbs. Someone had to be ready and waiting for when he finally found Riley.

The gelled ink performed well, giving him the slippery surface he needed to get a head of speed going. Mac had to hike up his legs to avoid breaking his ankles on a satellite dish as he passed overhead, and then he let them drop back behind him, slowing himself down as he approached the windows.

This part was gonna suck.

But the glass suddenly shattered while he was still at least twenty feet away, and Mac barely had time to change his position, balling himself up and letting go of the Kevlar just as he approached the stone. He flew through the now-open windowframes, landing hard on concrete floors and rolling several times before he threw out his arms to slow himself.

Mac slid to a stop on his back, wincing up at a tile-less lowered ceiling, and coughed weakly.

That . . . wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be.

He rolled gingerly onto his side, and from there to his feet, brushing small shards of glass off the shoulders of his now-ruined suit jacket. The blazer hadn't done as good a job as his leather bomber, but honestly the silk had held up better than he'd expected, and Mac looked up in time to see the phony attorney fly through the window, also in a ball.

He supposed he should thank the guy for shooting out the windows before he had to crash through them, but he didn't. Instead, Mac took quick stock of the space.

It had once been an office building for government employees, but the structure had been up for sale for going on four months now. It had been completely stripped in preparation for its new occupants, and Mac quickly found the door to the stairs. He headed for it immediately, glancing back as a third body tumbled into the room.

The colonel.

The door was locked, and rather than pick it Mac pulled out his swiss army knife and flat up broke the old hardware. The last of the Turks had arrived by the time he'd gotten that done, and he held the door open, gesturing for them to hurry. There was no power in the building, and the stairwell had no lights, but the ground floor stairwell door was open, and Mac led them past that landing to the basement door below.

It was unlocked, wonder of wonders, and Mac flicked on the flashlight on his multitool, sweeping the room.

It was clear this had once been storage, and the skeletons of metal utility shelves lined the walls and made neat rows throughout the large, irregular space. If he recalled correctly, the tunnels passed under the southwest corner, and Mac headed in that general direction. Another flashlight clicked on behind him – so at least one other person had been prepared – and Mac ducked around a corner that didn't really seem to make sense.

Bingo.

The utility door was only half height, and had been secured with a WWII-era padlock, which was in pieces on the floor beside it. The hair on the back of Mac's neck stood up, and he did a one eighty, flashlight up, to find more than the four people he'd expected to be standing behind him.

Along the back wall, which he'd ignored, were four _more_ men, in black tactical gear.

One of them was his shadow.

Hakan greeted his colonel with a salute, speaking rapid-fire Turkish. The colonel replied, his tone measured, and Mac picked out the words for 'ready' and 'come.' Then several flashlight beams pierced the darkness, dazzling Mac. He winced a little and lowered his own.

"Didn't have any problems finding the tunnels, I see," he said, keeping his voice cool and steady. "Did you ground the helicopters I asked for?"

There was a brief pause that sent his stomach plummeting. "There's been a change of plan, American."

"That's a mistake, and if this fails, it's on you," Mac replied coldly. Then he thought better of it. "And speaking of mistakes, attacking Matilda Webber was _incredibly_ stupid. I'm not sure even I can save you from that one."

"Perhaps," Hakan murmured, and Mac's stomach sank further at the all-but-admittance that he actually _had_ attacked Matty. With the flashlights blinding him, Mac couldn't see any of them, but he had the impression someone was moving off to his right. Hakan's voice was more measured when he continued. "If that's the case, I have no more need of you."

The blond dredged up a smirk.

 _Here we go._

"Well, then I hope you did your homework, sergeant." Mac gave him a casual shrug. "I'm sure you know all about the capabilities of the Inlichtingen-en Veiligheidsdienst and their deputy director. I mean, _I've_ infiltrated their headquarters undetected and stolen gigabytes of intel, but clearly with your background, you're the expert here."

Just because they'd mis-identified his body didn't mean the Phoenix hadn't dug up all the data on the colonel's prior team of Maroon Berets. He knew exactly what Kadir Hakan had done for the Turkish Gendarmerie.

Just like he'd known their 'agreement' was going to be scrapped the second Hakan felt like Aydin was safe. He just hadn't expected it to happen so soon. To happen before he'd gotten a chance to figure out where they were holding Riley.

Mac needed to take Hakan's confidence down a peg or two, and he needed to do it fast.

"I know all the ins and outs of the Dutch intelligence network, their capabilities, and their tactics. If you want to scrap my plan to get you out of Holland, that's your choice, but you'll _never_ make it to the border without my help."

There was a pregnant pause, and then a quiet rumble in Turkish. It sounded amused. The flashlights didn't move.

"Very well," Hakan allowed, finally, and Mac sensed more than heard motion, directly behind him.

-M-

So I guess I lied about revealing all the technical details . . . and sorry about the cliffie. And the delay in getting this out. This chapter was very hard to write, and I think it's because I typically start stories with the action. That's how the original Turkey Day started, and most of the others, to be honest. This was the first one I started at the chronological beginning, and I admit I toyed with re-writing the entire thing, starting with the court break-out, before I decided to tough it out as is.

What do you guys think? Is it boring to start at the beginning? Do you think it would have been better had I started with the action, then maybe pulled a "Two Days Earlier" to give everyone the background?


	6. Chapter 6

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Note:** This chapter, and the rest of the fic, includes characters from S1E17, **Ruler** , where the team goes to Amsterdam for Bozer's first overseas mission and ends up nearly disavowed. If you haven't seen the ep, you can still follow along, but if you find yourself wondering who Harlan Wolff or 'Mouse' is, referencing the ep will help.

-M-

By the time someone pulled the hood off, Mac had more or less come to the conclusion that he was, in fact, still alive.

It was kind of hard to tell. He couldn't move. Couldn't really feel more than his jaw, throbbing to his pulse. Until the hood had been pulled off, he wasn't even really sure it was a hood at all, or if he'd been stuffed into a claustrophobically tiny, dark space to suffocate.

When fresh air and light came unexpectedly crashing in, Mac was still too dazed to do more than suck in a deep breath of cool air and close his eyes against the barrage.

Whoever pulled off the hood, they gave him ample time to get his shit together. The light was yellow and artificial, and the deep maroon carpeting on the floor seemed thick. He was still wearing his suit, though the jacket had been removed at some point. He couldn't see his arms, but he made out his legs, and it didn't even look like they were tied to the chair he was sitting in.

It wasn't until he shifted his weight a little that he realized he'd been in that position for so long that his entire lower body had fallen asleep. The pins and needles started up after a few seconds, and Mac rolled his head to his right, trying to figure out why his shoulder seemed to suddenly terminate in a stump.

Someone said something in Turkish. Mac couldn't place the voice or the words. He did jump, however, when the door opened, and he had the impression that he'd briefly fallen asleep.

His shadow stepped into the room, almost silently, and gave him a once-over. Mac did his level best to focus on the man, but it was harder than it should have been. His head felt heavy.

He let his eyes roll, as much to demonstrate his annoyance as because it was just too hard to keep looking up. "You'll have to do better than this," he told the Turk, not liking the way some of the words slurred.

"Will I?" Hakan murmured, closing the door and leaning against it. "We sedated you for transport, and as you can see, we have arrived."

Mac reluctantly picked his head back up, taking another deep breath. It didn't help. The walls were plain and flat, a light ivory in the artificial light. They looked weirdly smooth to Mac, but he couldn't put his finger on what it reminded him of. Besides the chair he found himself slouched in, there didn't seem to be any other furniture. No windows. The light switch was European, and Mac didn't bother trying to tilt his head up far enough to see the fixture.

Didn't matter. One door, two soldiers, and he was all pins and needles. He'd have to wait until whatever this was wore off.

"I have questions, American. You will answer them, truthfully and completely."

Mac looked back at his shadow, a little drunkenly, and tried to decide if he felt compelled to actually say anything. He did, a little, but mostly it was just to smart off. As far as he could tell, that was just his natural inclination, not anything induced by the drugs.

"You remember the punishment for lies."

Mac finally did roll his head back, finding the ceiling was significantly lower than he was expecting. Probably not much over seven feet. No good for hanging him from his wrists.

"Not to you, American. To her."

Riley.

Mac let his head fall back to his chest. His lap seemed empty. ". . . what, no phone?"

"Do you still require such proof?"

He thought about that a second. _Not really._

Hakan studied him, his dark eyes cold. "You revealed your plan to Jack Dalton."

Mac fuzzily shook his head. Then he paused. ". . .wait . . . that wasn't a question."

"It was a statement of fact."

"No," Mac denied again. No. No he hadn't told Jack the plan.

"Then why did he smuggle a firearm into the courthouse?"

 _. . . because he's not a total idiot?_

But there was still that filter, there, between Mac's brain and his mouth. Enough of it, anyway. ". . . he always does."

Hakan tilted his head to the side. "He is no fool. There was no reason to take such a risk, and such pains to conceal it, if he did not expect to need it."

Mac nodded. "Yes there is." Jack totally had a reason. Though nothing was really coming to mind . . . Jack would always have a gun because someone was always jumping out of the woodwork to shoot at them, and there had been a _lot_ of woodwork in that building.

"And what reason is that?"

Mac let his brain wander down the long list of people who would like to see them dead. Murdoc, of course, but he wasn't about to hand a trained interrogator something like that -

. . . interrogation. Sitting in a chair, feeling disconnected. Lightheaded. That was a pretty good reason.

"The bounty," Mac supplied. "Four million dollars."

Not that Joaquin 'El Noche' Sancola had the assets to pay it, even if anyone did come to collect. And honestly, he wasn't sure anyone had actually tried. At least not anyone Matty or Jack had bothered to tell him about.

"What bounty?"

"On me. Mexican drug cartel." No need to get too specific. "Why? You wanna use me t'fund Aydin's next war?"

That would at least keep him alive long enough to get sent to Mexico to die. Mac squinted at the room again, at the walls. They reminded him of something . . .

"So Jack always has a gun to protect you from assassins?"

Mac nodded. "Pretty much."

His shadow reached into his tac pants and pulled free a small black book. Mac found his eyes fixed on it, even as Hakan flipped through it slowly, one page at a time.

The same little black book he'd had in Turkey. The one that contained all the secrets. All the things the man had made him tell him. All the ways the Turk knew would crack him. Break him.

"We instructed you to place a USB drive in a computer attached to the Phoenix Foundation network."

It took Mac a second to switch gears. And it wasn't a question, so this time he didn't say anything.

"You intentionally disabled it."

Yep. He'd done that. Broken it off the front of that computer using his elbow where the cameras couldn't see.

At least, the camera on his phone.

Did they have Phoenix network access? Did Hakan know what he'd done?

And if he lied about it, what would they do to Riley?

Far too late, Mac realized he'd waited too long to respond. "I don't . . ." he tried, to cover up the lapse. "I told you they'd catch it."

"They didn't catch it," Hakan corrected him.

 _He knows._

His phone had been cloned and replaced. Matty Webber had been attacked, maybe even killed. Myrrh was truly in place and being executed. If they could do that, there was no telling if they could have used Riley to give them access to Phoenix –

But if they had access to Phoenix cameras, they would have called him out on it the second it happened. And if it was important, they would have made him fix it.

Whatever it was supposed to do, it hadn't, and Hakan was blaming him for it.

Had it had something to do with the attack on Matty . . .?

Mac tried to shrug. He wasn't sure how well he pulled it off. "I don't know," he finally said, hoping it sounded like an admittance. "I followed your instructions. And I told you it was a bad idea."

The interrogator tsked. "I don't believe you, American."

The blond agent focused on Hakan, putting as much heat into his glare as he could. "I don't care." Tied up. Drugged, The little black book. All to remind him what it had been like, a year ago, in that root cellar.

But this wasn't that. Hakan didn't have all the control, here. Nor did he have the time it would take to get it.

"You don't have a choice." Mac said it aloud, in case it wasn't already explicit. "And you know that. You never would have risked contacting me if you thought you could do this on your own." And as he heard the words leave his lips, he knew he was right. "Attacking Matilda Webber won't be the distraction you were hoping for. So you can either try – and fail - to shoot your way out of Holland, or you can do what I tell you."

As he'd hoped, his little attempt to turn the tides seemed to amuse Hakan, and the Turk entertained it. "You seem very confident of that, American."

Mac gave him a lopsided smirk. "I am. I know exactly what Deputy Director Harlan Wolff will do for the next forty-eight hours. And everything you'll need to evade capture."

"That is nothing more than the bare minimum necessary to keep the woman alive."

The blond slowly shook his head. "You were never going to let her go."

Hakan spread his hands. "If that is true, nothing has changed."

Mac left his smile in place. ". . . _I_ changed it."

There was a long, considering pause. "You admit to going back on your word."

"You don't listen very well, sergeant," Mac threw the words back at him. "I'm forcing you to nothing more than the original terms of our agreement. Your colonel's not wasting away in a cell anymore. So no one's going to touch Riley again. She will be released, unharmed, in a safe location, when Aydin remains free for seventy-two hours. If Riley doesn't walk away . . . I've ensured that no one will."

It wasn't entirely true – at least, he couldn't be completely sure his plan would work, and even if it did, that it would work in time. But Hakan didn't know that. And the Turk couldn't have truly believed he would have strolled willingly into that courtroom unless he had a level of certainty - beyond Hakan's word - that he could get Riley out alive.

The interrogator had been expecting this. It was probably the reason Hakan had decided to come talk to him in the first place.

The only question now was whether the Turk would prefer to risk Riley being set free and hope Mac truly cooperated, or if he would choose to torture both of them for the necessary intel, knowing Mac would do everything possible to sabotage him.

Hakan studied him. "You are young," he observed. "Your confidence stems from the idea that I cannot extract that information from you before your organization intervenes."

"If you're not going to let her go, it's in my best interest to get you caught as soon as possible," Mac pointed out. "And I _promise_ you, if you hurt her, I will make sure it's the last thing any of you ever do."

There was a thoughtful silence, and Mac took a slightly deeper breath, still trying to shake off the dazed, disconnected feeling.

"I don't need to use the woman." Hakan cocked his head to the side, as if he couldn't quite grasp why Mac had said that. "I can acquire your unconditional cooperation – and the details of your so-called insurance - in less than an hour."

The Turk casually began rolling up his right sleeve, revealing a tactical watch and the beginnings of a tattoo. Mac couldn't see enough of the design to make it out. What _was_ clear to him was which decision the Turk had made, and Mac allowed his disappointment to show.

Whatever he'd been given, it must have had an anti-anxiety component, because even though he knew what was about to happen, he didn't feel any nervous anticipation. He just felt drained.

"I'm not going to tell you a damn thing until I speak with Riley Davis."

The Turk's right eyebrow twitched, and he began rolling his left sleeve. "I'm not seeking the intelligence yet, American. However, when I do ask for it, you will provide it to me, freely and eagerly."

Mac just watched him, still calm, as he reached into the thigh pocket of his tac pants and removed a small, zipped pouch. It looked a little like a compact pencil case.

"You need not speak at all. I simply want you to observe the time."

He held his right wrist in front of Mac, where he could read the digital face – 1410, but he had no idea if it was set to local time, and if it was, _where_ they were – and the interrogator then set the pouch down in Mac's lap. He barely felt it.

"It seems I have given you reason to doubt me, Angus MacGyver. Therefore, in fifty minutes, we will see if I spoke truly when I told you I could compel your cooperation in less than an hour."

Whatever was in the pouch, it wasn't terribly heavy, and it could certainly accommodate something the length of a syringe. Mac had to tilt his head fairly far back to look up at the Turk's face.

"You might wanna wait for your other drugs to wear off first," he advised the man.

No point torturing someone who couldn't really feel it.

Hakan gave him a droll look. "You would prefer I didn't."

-M-

There was a firm knock on the door.

The Turk straightened from his crouch, lest it was the colonel, but it was Koray who stuck his head into the room. He glanced at Hakan inquiringly, then to the chair in the corner where Roshan sat texting. Then he looked down at the floor.

" . . . not forthcoming, eh?"

Hakan followed the other sergeant's gaze to the young man curled, trembling and gasping, at his feet. "I think he's reconsidered his position," he replied, in English, before he kicked the American's right hip, where a scar should be, rolling him unresistingly onto his back. "Or shall we continue? We still have –" and he glanced at his watch.

The digital face read 1509.

Impressive. The American had actually stretched it to just a hair under an hour. Hakan chalked that up to the diazepam still in his system. And it hardly mattered; the agent couldn't possibly have an accurate sense of time at the moment.

"- seven minutes," he decided. Making the man believe he'd resisted for forty-three minutes was still a respectable amount of time, and the threat of another seven minutes of the treatment was still plenty long enough to fear.

Even barely conscious as he was, the words seemed to filter through, because the American's head rolled to the left, seeking relief in the safety of the far wall.

He didn't have to speak. That one simple movement expressed his overwhelming desire to avoid additional pain.

Then the young man groaned – probably due to the vertigo - and Hakan turned his attention back to the pouch in his left hand, counting carefully before he zipped up the bag. The last thing he wanted to give the American agent was a weapon.

"Corporal, check him again for any contraband we may have missed. If you find anything else, wipe it down, get a clean print, and put it with the rest."

Roshan gave him a nod, tucking his phone away. "Where do you want him?"

Hakan gave the American another once-over. He was still mostly dressed; his shirt had been torn open but the majority of the buttons were intact. The starched white cotton was only spotted with blood in a few places. And the Turk had no doubt that seeing her fellow agent in such poor condition, yet with so few visible wounds, would be far more alarming to the woman than if he had simply been beaten.

"Let him recover for a few moments. Once he's unconscious, put him with the woman."

The corporal gathered up the agent's discarded blazer – it would be put with the rest of his articles, to be planted later – and shook out the black fabric hood. Reassured that the American would be afforded no opportunity to determine his location, Hakan followed Koray into the hall.

"Liris just arrived. She wanted to speak with you."

Good. The two men headed up a narrow staircase in single file, Koray leading. Hakan had to speak loudly to be heard over their boots tramping up the metal stairs. "Has the colonel settled in?"

His fellow sergeant nodded, and they turned the corner, climbing another set of steep stairs. "He's taking the grand tour now."

Which reminded him - "See to it that the female agent is made presentable. The colonel may wish to interrogate her."

Koray acknowledged the order with another sharp nod, and the narrow service hallway opened suddenly into a large banquet hall. The carpeting became thick and luxurious under their boots, and the muffled murmurings of the voices around them seemed muted. The men could be seen relaxing, two to three at a table, playing cards or seeming to read, but Hakan knew all of them were keeping an eye on the streets below.

"Have Feza and Denha returned?"

"They're en route." It was a female voice that answered him, as sharp and businesslike as usual. Hakan dipped his chin to Koray, who continued for the lobby, and instead of following, Hakan changed course, catching Liris' eye as she dropped into a seat at the nearest table.

Someone had placed pitchers of water and tea on the buffet tables, and Hakan collected a glass of water – no ice – and delivered it to Liris, who accepted it with a grateful nod and drained it almost in a single swallow.

"I couldn't be certain we scrubbed all the footage from Director Webber's security system," she continued seamlessly. "Airports were too risky. I had them come in by car."

"Not a problem," Hakan assured her. Even if his men didn't make it before dusk, they would certainly catch up overnight.

"I have confirmation of the kill," she continued, rotating the screen on her laptop tablet hybrid, and Hakan found himself studying an INTERPOL alert. "News of the director's death is having the intended effect."

Major Denha would consider the mission a failure despite producing the required outcome. Still, the two men they had lost had served their colonel well, and Hakan had no doubts Aydin would honor them accordingly.

"Any other loses?"

Liris reclaimed the monitor, shaking her head with a whisper of blue silk. "No. Your men cleared the courthouse before the Dutch police could lock down the perimeter. Zeki's already been treated for a minor gunshot wound."

Hakan glanced at her in surprise. "I thought you said they got clear-" Then it occurred to him who he had sent them to kill. He quietly swore.

Liris shot him a grim smile. "Dalton was saved by Dutch law enforcement."

". . . unbelievable." That man had more luck than Allah himself.

"I doubt his agency can get him cleared before tomorrow, if you want to try for him while he's still in holding . . . ?"

Briefly, Hakan considered rerouting Feza and Denha, but there was no small risk involved, and little to gain. Besides the death of one of the agents responsible for this whole entire mess. Regardless of whether his young American friend was telling the truth, Hakan had seen with his own eyes the relationship between the older, protective agent and the younger. Jack Dalton would not stop pursuing Angus MacGyver until he recovered him.

Fortunately, that meant they had multiple opportunities to kill him.

"And what of his agency?"

The woman's eyes darkened as they returned to the screen. "Someone has been attempting to track MacGyver's phone. I've kept them entertained."

He had no doubt that was true.

"If they did locate and analyze the data on that USB drive, I'll know soon enough. Right now they seem to be regrouping and ensuring their systems are clean."

"And our local friends?"

Finally, an expression that legitimately looked pleased crossed her serious features. "Tracking two stolen helicopters across the border."

The American's aborted escape plan had made a fine distraction. "Well done. Will you be joining us, or staying in the city?"

The pleasant expression faded a little. "I'll work remotely for the time being, but once it becomes clear the trial is indefinitely delayed I may be recalled."

"Then I look forward the pleasure of your company this evening." A large shadow appeared on their right, silently, and Hakan hid a smile as he watched Liris straighten in surprise.

She schooled her features before she turned, counting on her headscarf to have concealed her face, and then she stood, the silk whispering over her shoulders. He'd caught the sound a thousand times over coms, but never put together what he was hearing.

If Aydin was surprised, he didn't show it. He simply took one of her small hands in his, covering it with the other. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you," the colonel greeted her, his tone formal. "I thought perhaps the day would never come that we would see your face. Tell me my incarceration has not forced you to reveal yourself."

Liris met his gaze unflinchingly, and Hakan silently observed them sizing one another up. Of course, Liris knew every detail about the colonel. It was her choice to approach him, more than a year before the attempted coup, and pledge her loyalty to his camp. She had watched him, watched all of them, from cameras and satellites and perhaps even with her own eyes, but had remained fully separated from the rest of Aydin's forces.

Even Lieutenant Kenan had never met Liris in person. He died having never seen her face.

But she had seen his. In life and in death.

"It was not," Hakan broke in gently, when it seemed Liris would not answer. "I am afraid her presence here is my doing."

The colonel canted his head slightly, an invitation to continue, and Hakan fought the urge to fall into parade rest.

"The lieutenant, second lieutenant, and major's bodies were eventually released for interment, with some of the other men we lost that night. Their families came to claim them. I presumed Erdogan would at least surveil, if not actively harass those who came, so I too attended. There was a woman there who did not weep or step forward, who seemed to be observing only. I believed her to be one of Erdogan's agents. However, when I approached her, she turned to me and said three words."

Aydin looked back to Liris, expectantly, and she graced him with a frown. "Well, he _was_ sloppy," she said, without a trace of apology.

The colonel blinked at her, then he gave a booming laugh. "Ah, sergeant, you were made by a civilian-"

"In my defense, I wanted her to know I was there," Hakan muttered good-naturedly. "But the moment I heard her voice, I knew immediately who she was. She has worked with me ever since that moment to ensure your freedom."

The colonel brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I do not understand why you didn't wish to be seen. You are quite beautiful."

Liris didn't blush, but Hakan didn't expect her to. "That's precisely the reason, colonel," she told him, in the same brisk tone she had used with him since Hakan had known them. "Men are difficult enough to manage when given even the most simple of instructions. I have no time to waste on niceties."

But the grin on the colonel's face didn't fade. "Well, then I apologize, my dear Liris, but I insist you find the time this evening. The major was very fond of you," he continued keenly. "He would have had some choice words for you, taking such a risk that day."

She pulled her hand from his grasp, and he let her. It was all the emotion she showed. "I appreciate the invitation, colonel. I've prepared material that requires your immediate review."

Aydin gave her a small bow. "I expected nothing less."

And then Liris retook her seat – and her laptop – and effectively ended the audience.

The colonel's eyebrows bobbed, and Hakan took the hint and followed him as he strode towards the banquet tables. He helped himself to a glass of water, assessing the room. The men stayed at their posts at the windows, hardly daring to glance over, but the quiet buzz of excitement was insuppressible.

If all went according to plan, Batuhan Aydin was once again a free man.

"This is quite the surprise, sergeant."

It wasn't a question, so Hakan remained silent.

"Tell me the highlights, if you wouldn't mind."

-M-

This time, when the door opened, she was ready.

Riley kept her eyes closed, and her breathing soft and steady. Last time whoever had come had simply taken the empty food bowl and gone. But she'd been lying now in the same position for some time. She figured they'd want to make sure their hostage didn't OD, and she listened to whoever it was hesitate at the door a moment before she heard footsteps on the wooden floor.

Bingo.

Fabric, not ceramic, landed on the ground with a quiet plop, and the footsteps came closer. They were soft, not military boots, but the hand that struck her face was plenty hard.

The slap had been delivered to her bruised left cheekbone, and Riley couldn't suppress her flinch. Wincing pulled sharply at her split lip. Riley opened her eyes, faking drowsiness, and then she was hit again, same place, and she clumsily raised her hands to defend herself.

"Wake up," a woman's voice growled.

Riley let her eyes roll a little, but in her peripheral vision she could see it wasn't the same woman as before. This woman was also wearing a hijab, but she had on much less traditional clothing. She was wearing tan pants and an ivory silk blouse, and could have just walked off the street in any major city in the world. Her entire face was visible, and her makeup was relatively well done.

It wasn't able to hide her displeasure, and when Riley raised her hands to ward off another blow, the woman grabbed the hem of the tunic that was over Riley's dress and started to tug it upwards.

Riley knocked the woman's hands away, probably more rapidly than she might have if she was truly drugged, and the Muslim woman bared her teeth.

"Fine! You will shower and change. You have five minutes."

The woman straightened, glaring down at her, and Riley blinked up at her, honestly confused. She was aware she was stinky, but that was to be expected since she'd been here . . . however long, and taking a shower wasn't going to do her a damn bit of good without –

When the woman saw that she had Riley's eyes, she pointed at a small bundle on the floor near the bathroom entrance. The folded fabric was black, just like what she was already wearing, but there was a small white paper box on top, the kind that cheap hotels used to distribute soap.

"Do you understand?"

Riley looked back at the woman. She wasn't armed, and outside of the fact that her hands were rock solid Riley couldn't tell if she was a soldier or just a woman used to hard work. She wasn't wearing a belt and didn't seem to have anything in her pockets. No necklace, and her ears were hidden behind the hijab.

There was nothing on her, at least visibly, that Riley could use to get herself free.

So instead of fighting with her, Riley made a half-hearted effort to pull herself into a sitting position. The woman exhaled sharply in irritation and again tried to pull her clothes right off her.

 _Oh_ hell _no._

"I got it," she slurred in annoyance, flailing enough that the woman stepped back, and after another scornful glare, the woman quickly crossed the small room and rapped twice on the door. It was opened, and the woman slipped out without a backwards glance.

A shower and a change of clothes.

It was time to go somewhere.

She wasn't exactly sure she really wanted to get naked in a place like this, but the truth was she hadn't put on the outfit she was currently wearing, so clearly that line had already been crossed. Riley looked at the door a moment, then pulled the tunic over her head, and carried it and her discarded niqab to the door. She wedged the fabric as tightly under the door as she could, then picked up the new clothes.

They were almost an exact match to what she was wearing. The white box did indeed contain soap, but the cardboard was flimsy and blank. There was no branding on it or the simple, rectangular bar of soap. It didn't have a strong fragrance.

It was better than nothing. And if they really did intend to come back and get her in five minutes, she didn't have a lot of time.

Riley stripped quickly and turned on the shower. The water pressure was just as bad as before, but she stepped under the weak spray anyway and got to work. She didn't drink any of it; her mental Mac experiments earlier had already taught her that it had a funny taste to it. She wasn't sure it was drugged, but it might not be filtered, in which case it could make her sick.

And even though it was cooler than she would have liked, it felt great against her swollen cheek. She hadn't looked at the bruising on her abdomen before now, but it was pretty obvious even on her dark skin. She'd completely forgotten about skinning her foot on the soldier's boot until soapy water stung it, and she used the soap to give the scratches a good scrub. An infection was the very last thing she needed right now.

Five minutes wasn't enough time to do much with her hair; the soap did, however, help her get the semi-permanently tangled rubber band out. She was shivering by the time she turned off the water, and used the old dress as a makeshift towel before struggling, still damp, into the fresh clothes.

She was pretty sure the entire thing had taken more than five minutes, but no one had tried to force their way through her crappy fabric doorstop, and when she was put back together as much as she could get, she pulled the fabric away from the door, and backed off.

And she was a little surprised when nothing else happened.

Riley considered crapping out on the floor again, but she figured they knew she was at least ambulatory at this point, and it wouldn't work. Listening to the shower water splashing had made her thirsty again, but the chill was taking the edge off that. Five minutes stretched into ten, then ten into ten more, and yet no one came back to the door.

Change of plans? Or had they simply wanted her to be ready whenever they needed her to be?

Outside, there was the soft sound of chimes in an afternoon breeze. They were like the windchimes in the US, just five tubes and a striker, but it seemed to ring the same pattern more often than not. Someone laughed, and then there was the squeal of brakes that needed attention.

A dog barked.

Riley stared at the wall a moment, blankly. It was always the same dog, and it never barked at anything other than cars.

Maybe it had gotten hit one too many times. She could relate.

Riley sighed and took stock of the room. For the first time, it wasn't totally empty. She now had a crappy cardboard box and most of a small bar of soap, as well as spare fabric. There was no doubt in her mind that Mac could use those three things five different ways to escape this damn room.

 _You have more than that, Riley_ , her mental Mac chided her. _Look again_.

She had water, in the bathroom. She had power, in the walls, and a light bulb that she could probably unscrew if she jumped for it. The cloth could be shredded to make rope. Maybe to choke the guard? The cardboard box was flammable, so she could probably use the light bulb to somehow light it on fire . . .

Riley looked down at the thickly painted particleboard. With her luck, that paint was flammable, too.

. . . but was it waterproof?

Riley went back into the bathroom, looking at the floor. It was tile, painted over, and the paint didn't seem to care that there was standing water on it. Still, she went back into the main room, grabbed her old niqab, and wet it down in the sink. Then she tossed it in a sodden pile behind the door. She'd let it sit there as long as she could. If the paint wasn't waterproof, maybe the particleboard would swell up, and she could get some of it up.

. . . and then she'd have little bits of torn up, wet wood.

Riley sighed. "And what good would that do me? Huh?" Probably splinters were the very thing Mac would need, but she had no fucking clue what she was supposed to do with them. Kindling for the fire that would only kill her? She could try to stab the guard in the eye with one? Hell, if she could get that close to him, she could use a fingernail instead.

Riley glared at the sodden, black fabric behind the door, and her eyes wandered to the hinges.

She could always use the soap to slick down the hinges, and try to get the pin out?

The wet splinters wouldn't help much, and neither would her nails. Riley idly inspected them. Chipped to hell.

Well, if she couldn't use her nails, what else could she use?

"There's nothing in here," she grumbled, heading off mental Mac at the pass. She'd been over this. The only moveable objects were in the bathroom, and she'd tried them all. Even tried unscrewing the shower head off the wall.

But there was one thing in the bathroom she hadn't even considered.

Riley pushed herself off the wall and went into the bathroom again, this time looking at the toilet. It was a very compact thing, with the buttons that flushed it on the top of the tank lid. Like the shower and sink, it wasn't in bad shape. It was a regular commercial toilet.

She felt around the edge of the tank for a moment, but didn't find anything that would stop her from taking it off, so she pulled up on it.

The porcelain of the toilet tank was attached to the toilet by those buttons on the top, so she couldn't just take it off and use it as a weapon, but she _could_ pull it up just enough to rotate the lid sideways, exposing the toilet tank innards.

She was no expert plumber by any means, and it was pretty dim in the bathroom, so a quick glance didn't give her much. There was a big plastic kind of rectangle that apparently contained all the working parts, with a black sort of hinged flapper on the top that was also plastic. A plastic white hose connected the rectangle to the water supply, which seemed to be coming directly through the wall into the tank. The whole thing was just flimsy shitty plastic, even the parts that connected to the metal buttons on the top of the tank.

Riley glared at the toilet for a minute, reaching under the lid to see if she could feel how the buttons were connected, but she couldn't make out much besides a slick plastic ring.

 _Well, it was a thought._

She was rotating the tank lid back into place when it occurred to her that there was one other thing in that tank that she had completely ignored.

The water.

Again, not a toilet expert, but the water in the tank was clean. She looked down into the tank again, but the water seemed clear, and then Riley grabbed the cup off the sink and dipped it in, getting a little. She expected it to taste just like the shower water, not filtered, but it didn't.

It didn't taste like the shower water or the sink water. There was just a hint of chlorine to it. Riley checked the tank again, but she didn't see any kind of cleaning products stuck to the sides, and honestly -

Honestly, it pretty much tasted like generic city tap water.

If she really was about to be taken somewhere, the very last thing she wanted to do was poison herself.

But seriously. Who would ever think to drink the water out of the toilet tank?

 _Mac would._

Mental Jack patted mental Mac on the head and reminded her there was a time and a place for experiments, and that time was not when you were about to be tucked into a car for a drive that might end with a pier and a gun. Mental Mac gave mental Jack a look and pointed out that she didn't need to drink a gallon of it, and her system was pretty clean at the moment, so she'd notice any deleterious effects quickly.

Riley thought about it a second, then she downed half a cup of the water – more because she was thirsty than because she disagreed with mental Jack - and put the toilet tank lid back into place.

And then, there was truly nothing else to do but wait.

It had been a while now. Not just after the mandatory shower, but in general. Days, at minimum. There was no telling if Mac and Jack had already gone to the trial, or had already done whatever it was they were supposed to do. How much longer she was going to be kept in this room before -

Of course, if they meant to kill her, why give her new clothes?

Both mental Jack and mental Mac thought that was a very good point, and she'd returned to pacing in the room, waiting for any kind of blurry vision or swimming head to hit, when something finally happened.

The door opened, silently, but the woman was gone. In her place stood an enormous man in black BDUs.

The soldier from the first day. The one she'd attacked.

Her stomach lurched and Riley took an involuntary step back, belatedly remembering she hadn't bothered to put either the hijab or niqab back on, as he pushed the door all the way open. And then she saw he was not alone.

There was a body, slung over his right shoulder like a sack of rice. It was male, only charcoal grey slacks and black-socked feet were visible, but Riley would have recognized that ass anywhere.

The soldier gave her a deadly look, then shrugged in irritation, and the body he was carrying slithered bonelessly off his shoulder. Riley was barely fast enough to catch Mac – and it _was_ Mac, the blond hair cinched it – before his head would have slammed into the floor. He was heavier than he looked, and his hands were bound behind his back; his weight crashing into her carried them both to the ground.

It didn't matter. She had him, his shoulders in her lap and his head against her stomach, and she thought she saw a sliver of liquid blue before his eyes slid shut.

"Mac?" she tried, her voice sounded oddly strangled. His eyes didn't open again, and if it was possible, he grew even heavier in her arms.

" _Mac_!"

She didn't get a response, and her shaking fingers found his throat. His pulse was fast but strong, and she felt his back press against her knees as he took a breath.

He didn't look terribly bruised up, and his white oxford shirt would have made any wounds readily apparent, but he was pale and sweaty, and she glared up at the soldier, still standing in the doorway.

He smirked at her, and muttered something in Turkish. Then he turned and walked away.

The woman came up from the other side of the doorway, giving her a scathing look before entering the room to collect her discarded clothes.

". . . what did he say?" And what the hell had they done to Mac? Why was he here?

Had he come to get her out?

The Muslim woman glared at her, snatching up the dirty tunic. "He said you finally know your place, girl," she snapped, and then she was gone, closing the door behind her.

The only thing she had left behind was the soap and the sodden niqab, still heaped in the corner behind the door.

-M-

"Wow. Does that fella look like a young Bruce Willis to you?"

The man across the table from him might as well have had ice water for blood. "No. He looks quite a bit like you, though, Mr. Darby."

Jack shrugged, and would have leaned back in his seat if his wrists hadn't been chained to a table, which was bolted to the floor. "You think so?"

The lines were getting old, even to him, and the lieutenant leaning against the wall across from him sighed. "Listen, Ethan . . . can I call you Ethan?" His English was nearly perfect, and he'd removed his necktie and loosened his collar ages ago. Jack couldn't blame him – the room was quite warm, almost stifling.

Jack inclined his head agreeably.

"We don't think you're working for the colonel."

Jack gave the louie a blank look, then looked back at the laptop, which was paused. On it, in living color, was one Jack Dalton, walloping some poor schmo in a suit with the decorative lid of a trash can.

". . . is that 'cause that guy who looks like a much older, less handsome version of me is beatin' the tar outta one of 'em?"

Ethan Darby, after all, was an outgoing Texan who didn't take anything too seriously – except ghost pepper eating contests. And getting the perfect shot.

And that wasn't the perfect shot. The camera in the hallway hadn't gotten his best side.

If he had been Jack Dalton, he would have been silently fuming as the clock on the wall continued its excruciating march forward.

Six hours.

Six hours, and he was no closer to getting out of here. There'd been no phone call. No one entering the room with a confused expression, only to pull their colleagues into a whispered conversation before they cut him loose.

Matty would have gotten him out of here _hours_ ago.

Instead, he had to mollycoddle Mutt and Jeff while they blundered their way through the most obvious good cop bad cop routine he'd seen in years. At least they hadn't blatantly admitted to cranking up the heat in the room, another standard interrogation method he had no patience for.

Hell, even Ethan Darby might legitimately be getting tired of this by now.

"How did you know a gun was there?"

"What gun?" Jack asked innocently, looking between good cop on the wall, and bad cop sitting at the table.

Good Cop rolled his head on his shoulders. "We have footage of a known person of interest planting the gun and ammunition while the night crew was cleaning up." Sure enough, Bad Cop turned the laptop and tapped a couple keys, and Jack watched a rather short custodian, wearing the standard uniform cap, drive her little cart up to the same trash can, at the same angle, and empty the trash. She fussed with the lid a moment, as if she couldn't quite get it back on correctly, and then she went on her way.

Jack almost smiled. Li was like a damn magician. Honestly, if they'd been in Amsterdam for fun he would introduce her to Mac –

Ethan Darby, however, cocked his head to the side. "Okay . . ."

Bad Cop frowned at him. "You didn't see her plant the weapon? Trained photographer like you?"

Ethan would brush off that comment, so Jack did. "Dude, we can walk that frame by frame if you want, but there was no gun there-"

Bad Cop glared at the actual gun, in a plastic evidence bag, sitting on the interrogation table at his right. "You mean that gun?"

Jack shrugged. "Listen, gents, I understand you got a job to do, and I'm a fan of law enforcement. I really am. You can check my work. But right now my partner is god knows where, getting god knows what done to him, and we're still sittin' here. C'mon, guys. The alarm went off, I walked out the exit, saw a guy tailin' me, and handled it the Texan way."

"The Texan Way is pretty effective," Good Cop murmured. "That where you learned to shoot like that? Texas?"

Bad Cop had scrolled along to the gunfight, for at least the fifth time, and Jack didn't even bother to watch. "Look, we exchanged a few hits, the guard came up, and someone started shootin'. I wasn't just gonna do nothing and let the guy die –"

"And I'm sure the officer appreciated that," Good Cop acknowledged. "That's why we know you weren't working for Colonel Aydin, Ethan. But those weren't just hired guns shooting at you."

On the screen, Jack tossed the mace canister into the hallway and shot it, resulting in a small white explosion. It looked almost as impressive as it had actually been.

"Good shooting, Tex," Bad Cop said, without even attempting a southern drawl.

"Thanks," Jack told him with a cock-eyed grin. "Listen, fellas. I showed up here this morning to put that son of a bitch Aydin behind bars. The alarm went off. Some Turkish guy starts comin' at me. Guard tells us to knock it off, next thing I know bullets are flyin'. I figure that's got something to do with the alarm, so I chased after 'em. That's all there is to it. It's self defense, plain and simple. Now, if you'll excuse me, I got an editor to call and a partner to find –"

"About that," Good Cop murmured.

They'd already gone down that path, too. Twice. Jack was unable to hide his impatience.

"I know what it looks like, but I'm tellin' you, they forced him –"

"Forced him to accept thirty thousand euros?" Bad Cop reached into his jacket and pulled out another evidence bag, tossing it onto the table as well. It looked like a manila envelope, exactly the right shape and size to hold cash.

Jack looked down at it, then back up at Bad Cop. The guy's lips twisted up, like he'd actually caught him in a lie.

"This was in your partner's hotel room. We also have footage of him meeting this man at Madurodam last night."

The last remaining folder on the table – incidentally the one that had been passed into the room about half an hour ago – contained photos, obviously taken from a security camera. The lighting was dim, but one of the men was definitely Mac. He couldn't have lined himself up with the camera better if he'd tried.

It was too insanely sloppy to have been a mistake. Mac had _meant_ to get caught on film.

And he hadn't just gotten his mug on camera. The next photo was him shaking hands with the guy, then accepting the envelope. The other man wasn't at quite as good an angle as Mac was, but the next photo clearly showed the guy's face as he walked away.

It was the tall-ass Turk who'd been standing in the public observation section of the courtroom, making eyes at Mac.

Jack looked at the photo more closely. Behind him, it almost looked like Mac was kneeling on the ground –

"That's Edric Mesich. He was a staff sergeant in the Turkish armed forces, currently listed as a deserter. He up and left the base about the same time the rest of Colonel Batuhan Aydin's men did, right after the attempted coup."

"Yeah? Tell me, how often do you see two fellas meet up in a park, shake hands, one guy pay the other guy, and then turn around and hit him with a gut punch?" Jack would have flipped the photo around if his wrist cuffs would have allowed it. "That was staged."

"Ethan . . ." Good Cop sounded sincerely regretful. "We have Luka Morrow's prints on the device that set off the radiation sensor at the courthouse this morning. We have security video footage of Luka attacking the guards attempting to keep Colonel Aydin in custody. We have his fingerprints all over the materials used to . . . to build whatever it was he built to run that zipline. And in the building that was used to escape, on both the second floor and the basement door leading to the old tunnels."

Jack shook his head. "I'm tellin' you, he wouldn't'a done that unless someone's life was on the line-"

"You mean besides Colonel Aydin's?"

Jack couldn't help it. "That bastard tortured him for _three weeks_! You think he-"

Bad Cop spread his hands. "I don't know what to think, Mr. Darby. I see a mountain of evidence that points to Luka Morrow taking a payout to help Batuhan Aydin escape the Hague."

Dalton shook his head, forcing a deep, slow breath. "You're seein' exactly what he wants you to see, man. Luka would never help that bastard, there's an angle you just ain't got yet –"

"And . . . that's where we're hoping you can fill in the blanks," Good Cop broke in gently. "His psychological records are sealed in the United States. We have the warrants already, but it'll take days to get everything here and reviewed. You've worked with him for years. Do you . . . do you know where he'd go next? What he might do? Do you think he'd reach out to you?"

Jack just stared at the men. Of course, they thought he was just a photographer, a civilian, but even still . . . This was the tree they were going to bark up? "Shouldn't you be askin' Aydin's boys that question?"

Neither Good Cop nor Bad Cop answered him, and Jack was struck with a terrible thought. ". . . wait. You didn't catch a _one_ of those guys? Not one?" He leaned forward, as far as the restraints would allow. "You don't know where they _went_?!"

If Mac had managed to smuggle all of the colonel's men out of the city, then they had _nothing_. Nothing except whatever trail Mac could leave him, and it was getting colder by the second.

Neither Good Cop nor Bad Cop answered, nor did they look at one another, and three sets of eyes swiveled to the door as it opened, revealing the same young man that had slipped the folder in earlier.

The young man hurried up to Good Cop and turned his back on the room, whispering, and Good Cop's eyebrows shot up.

 _About goddamn time!_

Myrrh or not, there should have been an acting director at the Phoenix within an hour of – of the attack. He could understand that person, whoever the fuck it was, being justifiably confused and pissed about what had gone down, but leaving an agent high and dry to be interrogated by Dutch Five-O was in no one's best interests.

Good Cop nodded and the young officer left, holding the door open. "Mr. Darby, there's someone who'd like to speak with you. We'll be just outside."

"You won't," a heavily accented voice announced, and then a mousy young woman who looked ever so vaguely familiar stepped into the room, glancing between Good Cop and Bad Cop. "This interview is confidential."

She looked like a freakin' Phoenix analyst in her librarian outfit and neat ponytail, but her accent was one hundred percent Dutch, and the voice didn't match the sweater and skirt. The young woman gave Bad Cop an icy glare, and the man climbed to his feet at a nod from his partner. Less than ten seconds after she entered, the door was closed and she was sitting across from him.

Jack blinked at her. "Uh-"

She held up a finger, and her eyes moved to the camera in the corner. Jack assumed she was waiting for the LED to go off. It didn't take long.

"Do I know you?"

"We've met, briefly," she replied, pulling a tablet out of her shoulder bag. "Explain this."

Jack stared at her a second, trying to place her, and then glanced down at the tablet.

An INTERPOL urgent boradcast stared back up at him.

Of course. This chick – he decided to call her Mouse - was one of the Inn Licker Tin . . . Dutch intelligence. She worked for Deputy Director Harlan Wolff.

The broadcast was only a page, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the name 'Matilda Webber.'

Deceased.

It was actually true.

Matty was really gone.

He only skimmed the rest.

Killed at her personal residence by military or ex-military special forces operators at 2331 local time. Method of attack included a software exploit targeting cellular infrastructure, causing a regional outage in the Los Angeles area, which suppressed alarms. Two attackers were killed by responders. At least two at large.

Intelligence community advised to immediately assess their organizations for breaches containing personal details of their leadership teams, including properties owned, rented, or leased. Intelligence organizations advised to take appropriate precautions to improve the security posture of their leadership teams until further notice.

They were treating Aydin's attack on Matty as part of a larger scale attack on the intelligence community as a whole. Which meant Matty hadn't told anyone –

Matty hadn't told anyone. That Mac was compromised. That Riley was a hostage. No one knew this was linked to Aydin but –

But him.

And Carter. He'd read Carter in himself.

Why the _fuck_ hadn't Carter told the new acting director? And how the hell hadn't Phoenix already tied those two dead guys right back to Aydin?

Jack tore his eyes off the report to look up at the analyst, but Mouse probably didn't know, either. If she was here asking him –

"Why are you here in the Hague?"

Jack blinked at her. ". . . I'm not sure what you mean-"

"Ethan Darby is an alias. How did you insert yourself into Batuhan Aydin's trial? What is your purpose here?" When Jack just stared at her, Mouse sat up a little straighter. "Why did your partner release the colonel? Is your agency running another unsanctioned operation on Dutch soil?"

. . . son of a _bitch._

He had zero authority to read Dutch intelligence into this. She wasn't here because the acting director of the Phoenix had sent her.

She was there because Dutch intelligence was treating Aydin's jailbreak as the escape of a terrorist, and then INTERPOL jogged Wolff's memory with Matty, so when Mac's face popped up helping the colonel break out – and his showed up in a shootout in the courthouse hallway –

He was standing right in the middle of another illegal op on an ally's soil.

And this time he couldn't be disavowed, because the Dutch knew who he was. Which meant the entire thing would be treated at face value. They'd go after Mac as if he'd actually committed treason. And Jack was his accomplice.

He was going to end up in prison. No one even _knew_ they were supposed to be looking for Riley. And Mac, if Aydin didn't kill him, was going to be shot on sight by his own team. And he didn't even know it.

Ice gripped his chest, and Jack slowly collapsed back into his chair. They were _screwed_.

Which meant he had to get out of here. Fast.

"We can't talk about this in here," Jack murmured quietly, trying not to move his lips. "Walls have ears."

Mouse gave him an irritated look. "The deputy director is arranging transportation. In the meantime, this room is secure, and you must give me the information. We are losing valuable time."

Jack tried for a charming smile. "You know there's regulations here, darlin'. I can't just take your word for it that you work for ol' Wolfie-"

There was a cheerful little chirp, like a finch had suddenly woken up and trilled out a little song to the sun, and Jack found himself actually looking for the thing to appear on Mouse's shoulder before she reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. She answered it with a quiet "Sir," so Jack had a pretty good idea who it was.

His window of getting out of this was getting smaller by the second. As soon as they uncuffed him, he was going to have to make a move, and taking a hostage wasn't his style but Mouse would make a good enough one. If he could convince her, maybe he could get her to convince Wolff. The deputy director wasn't a fan, but he knew their purpose in Amsterdam last time was to save lives, and someone like Wolff, who'd actually met the kids, would know that Mac couldn't have been bought. That Riley was truly in danger, and she was worth saving.

It might not be enough to save them from prison, but as long as he got Mac and Riley out of this alive, it'd be worth it.

Mouse's eyes flicked to Jack, and he could imagine the order she'd just gotten. Probably involving a black site.

What Jack did not expect was for her to place the phone on the table between them, and put it on speaker.

"Agent Dalton."

He recognized the voice on the other end of the phone. The deputy director's Dutch accent wasn't as strong as Mouse's, and his deep voice was more calm.

Jack affected a surprised look. "Uh, actually it's Darby . . . who's this?"

"Oh, cut the crap, Dalton," a tired, familiar voice snapped. "Stop stalling and start talking."

-M-

His body jerked him awake. For one endless moment, he was terrified that he'd only passed out, that they would continue, seven minutes, he'd said seven more minutes -

A hand grabbed his right shoulder, trying to hold him down, and Mac's body flinched again. His elbow and shoulder were on fire. Mac stifled a cry and stilled immediately, fearing he was only doing more damage.

Sound slowly trickled in. "-ey, whoa, Mac, it's me-"

He squinted open watering eyes to see that his head was lying on a black log, that terminated in a bare foot with royal blue toenails. Beyond that was a featureless beige. He was on his left side, and that arm ached fiercely and felt numb, all at the same time. The pressure he felt on his right shoulder was indeed a hand, but it wasn't hurting him, it was –

His brain finally caught up to his ears, and Mac unclenched his teeth with a groan.

". . . Riley?"

 _How was that possible?_

Her voice was both soothing and anxious, and she held him firmly, trying to steady him. "Easy, dude –"

His hands were trapped behind his back, he picked up his head and gave them a tug before a wave of vertigo washed over him like a hot, silent thunderclap. He was barely aware of moving, of Riley guiding him to lean up against a wall. His back and his arms burned, and his knuckles scraped against the rough surface as he tried again to pull his wrists apart. It got him nothing but pain.

A flash of a memory, suffocating in maroon carpeting, the buzzing, ratcheting sound of zipties being tightened –

Mac flinched again, then forced himself to take deep, slow breaths through his nose.

 _Calm down. You're okay. Calm down._

When the vertigo settled a little, and he was reasonably sure he wasn't going to barf, Mac risked opening his mouth. "Are you okay? What're . . . what're you doing here?"

How could Riley be _here_?

It hit him like a blow – he really had no idea where _here_ was. No idea how long he'd been out between the tunnels and –

And how long he'd been out since his conversation with Hakan. Hours, if his emphatically sore muscles were to be trusted.

Riley sounded surprised by the question. "Uh . . . you know. Just hangin' out. Finding religion and all that."

Mac warily opened his eyes, testing, but the dizziness was passing, and he very, _very_ carefully turned his head towards the sound of Riley's voice.

She looked okay. Pretty much the same as she'd looked over the video calls. Her left cheek was still swollen, but probably not broken, and she had a hell of a black eye going. Her bottom lip was split, and probably the reason why the relieved smile on her face was small and lopsided.

All of the injuries were made more pronounced by the black hijab, framing her face and hiding her ears and her hair, and Mac glanced down at her, suddenly realizing she was wearing a black, floor length dress in the Arab style.

But she wasn't holding herself as if she was injured, or in pain. There wasn't any tightness in her eyes or mouth, and her slouch against the wall seemed comfortable.

"Dig the new look?" she asked wryly.

Somewhere outside, a bell tolled, and then a male voice rose up in an undulating chant.

Riley rolled her eyes – apparently at the chanter. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but you look like crap. Are _you_ okay?"

Mac finally tore his gaze away from her, and glanced around the room. It was definitely the place he'd seen in the background of the calls; everything, even the ceiling, was painted a brownish beige. The room was fairly small, with a single door – no doorknob, and it swung inward – and some kind of tiny closet or bathroom taking up part of the front wall.

There was a small pile of black rags in the far corner, and a single European-style light bulb, dangling by less than half an inch of wire from the ceiling.

If this is where they'd been keeping Riley all this time, then it was probably fairly secure. Especially if Hakan – and now the colonel – were here as well.

A sharp pain lanced through his back, and Mac sucked in a quick breath and held it, bending at the waist to try to ease the cramp. It loosened up after a few seconds, and then a rippling twitch started up in his right shoulder.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be fine," he answered distractedly, and flexed his wrists again. Definitely zipties. "Do you know where we are?"

She didn't immediately answer, and when Mac had given the room another visual inspection and turned back to her, she was giving him one of her skeptical looks. "Kinda hoping _you_ did, since you're here? Is . . . is Jack . . . ?"

Jack.

Mac let his head fall back gently against the wall, trying to coax the twitching muscles in his back to relax. "No, I don't think Jack is here." With any luck, his partner was organizing the local law enforcement response. Though 'local' could now be quite a bit further away than he'd estimated. "I _thought_ we were in the Netherlands, but given the call the prayer we just heard-"

"Oh, don't worry about that." She cocked her head as if she was listening to something, and Mac followed suit. Distantly, he could hear what sounded like people chatting, but he couldn't make out the language. Riley lifted her left hand, then made a series of gestures, like an orchestra conductor.

At every one, something happened. A child laughed. A car honked. Then –

"Woof," she said, in perfect unison with the bark of a dog.

Mac stared at her for a second. "Did you just become clairvoyant?"

"Nah, I just listen to a lot of trance." Riley made another gesture, and what sounded like a door slammed. "The sound's piped in – most of it, at least. And that's not the only thing," she added, the humor draining from her voice. "There's sedatives in the water, and probably the food too."

So they _had_ been sedating her. He wasn't sure whether he should feel relief or dread.

She might not even remember the video calls. If they'd been drugging her the whole time –

Then there was a lot she might not remember.

Mac swallowed, then drew his sore legs towards himself in a loose Indian style. "Are you okay? Really?"

The look she gave him was almost exasperated, and it did more to reassure him than her words ever could. "Yeah. I know it looks bad, and it didn't feel great, but it was kinda my fault. I jumped one of the guards but apparently I need to practice my hand to hand while wearing a gown."

Mac winced on her behalf. "I'm so sorry, Riley-"

She brushed it off. "Not your fault. They were speaking Turkish, so I figured they were using me to get you and Jack to do something. I take it since you're here that you did . . . whatever it was?"

"Sort of." Mac rubbed the bottom of his right foot with his left. With any luck, they hadn't found it when they searched him. "I kinda broke Aydin out of the Hague."

"You . . . you broke Colonel Aydin out of the Hague," she repeated flatly. "Uh, okay. Do you have a plan for putting him back? Or maybe getting us out of this?"

Mac gave her an apologetic look. "Kind of."

Riley glared at him for a moment. "Dude, are your feet itching or something?"

He supposed it did look a little odd. And he wasn't having any luck trying to peel the sock off. Dress socks were too silky to really get a good grip. "No. Can you do me a favor and pull my right sock off? I had a paperclip in there."

Mac extended his right foot out towards her, grimacing when it pulled at sore muscle groups in his thigh, and with a shake of her head she did as she was asked. Unfortunately, there was no paperclip in the sock, even when she turned it inside out, nor one stuck to the bottom of his foot.

 _Crap._

"Yeah, I didn't have any paperclips in my socks, either," Riley quipped sarcastically, slipping his sock back onto his narrow foot. "Your pockets are empty, too, otherwise I'd have gotten you out of those restraints by now. Sorry."

"It's okay."

He'd had a feeling Hakan was going to do that. Put him back in zipties. Use all the same tactics, all the same techniques. Remind him of what it had been like. Try to exert control.

 _This time I do not require you to be whole, American. I do not even require you to be sane._

He'd underestimated the man.

Almost as if she was reading his thoughts, Riley settled back against the wall beside him. "Mac . . . are you sure you're okay? You were out for a while, and . . . you were kind of spazzing."

Mac eased himself a little against the wall, still trying to convince his back to stop twitching. "Any idea how long it was?"

"Hours." She was studying him carefully. "Is there anything I can do?"

 _You can get me the hell out of these goddamn zipties._

But he shook his head, silently, and shoved himself a little straighter against the wall. "It'll pass. It's, uh . . . honestly, I'm not sure." It had felt like a powdered acid, or maybe some kind of enzyme. Whatever it was, it was still burning into his muscles, but it wasn't debilitating.

Just extraordinarily painful.

Riley pushed herself to her feet and swept across the small space, ducking into the tiny connected room. Over the sound of distant traffic outside, he heard what sounded like ceramic scraping on itself, and then Riley emerged holding a small cup that was the same color as the walls and floor. And the ceiling. Mac dug his fingernails into the wall, trying to gauge the thickness of the paint.

It seemed to be some kind of sealant. Probably to keep the particleboard from stabbing them to death. It was too thick to get a fingernail through, and he stopped to wonder if it was gas permeable.

It didn't matter. The particleboard that had been nailed up – floors, walls, ceiling – was uneven enough that there were gaps between the edges, some almost a quarter inch. And it didn't look like the door was tight enough to seal.

It would certainly muffle sound, though. Anything coming in – and any noise they kicked up.

Riley knelt down in front of him and held up the cup. "Here, drink this."

He eyed it suspiciously. ". . . didn't you say the water was drugged?"

She nodded, then gave him a wan smile. "Not the toilet water."

Mac felt his eyebrows climb. "Uhm . . ."

The smile became a smirk. "From the tank, genius."

Oh.

She held it to his lips and he accepted, and drank the entire cup. Once he was finished, he realized how thirsty he truly was, and she seemed to read it on his face because she went and got him a refill. He nodded gratefully when he was done.

"Thanks."

"Yeah." She'd been inspecting him critically while he drank, and now she reached towards his collar. Mac held himself perfectly still as she gently tugged at it. It seemed to stick for a second, tackily, and then it pulled free. The sting was sharper than he expected.

"Ow."

Riley winced. "You got a couple holes in you, Mac. They drug you too?"

 _Not exactly._

Mac opened his mouth, to tell her it was fine, to drop it, but something in her eyes told him she wouldn't respond well to his continued evasion. She was calm, clearly she'd been here for a while and she'd definitely been using her head. Avoiding the drugs, determining the sounds outside were being faked –

"No drugs." At least he didn't think so. "Just needles."

Not terribly wide bore, either.

They hadn't needed to be.

Her eyes widened fractionally, and Mac decided to focus on something else. "So everything we're hearing, that's just a soundtrack?"

"Uh . . . uh, yeah." She dropped her eyes to the cup, then straightened quickly and headed back to the – it must have been a bathroom, if there was a toilet. "It's some kind of adaptive program, kinda like a white noise machine. It's got a base track of city noise, and a library of features so you're less likely to detect the repeats."

"Do you know how long you've been here?"

She returned to the main room, sans cup. "No. But they picked me up Monday night. I woke up here."

Mac did the math. Just enough time to get her from the United States – wherever the grey hat conference had been – and into Europe, potentially the Middle East. "It's Thursday night. At least it was last time I checked." A little frown crossed her face, and Mac ducked his head a little to keep her eyes. "Do you remember being anywhere else? A plane, a car . . .?"

She shook her head, tugging at the hijab fabric under her chin. "No. Woke up in this getup. Kept thinking it was because they were going to move me and wanted to avoid facial rec, but they never did." A flat expression crossed her face. "They did give me fresh clothes today, though. About an hour before they dropped you off."

. . . had they intended to move her? Make sure he didn't know where she was?

Mac's stomach lurched as he finally understood.

 _I don't need to use the woman. I can acquire your unconditional cooperation – and the details of your so-called insurance - in less than an hour._

That was why Hakan hadn't asked him any questions. Why he'd stopped after an hour. It wasn't simply a punishment because he'd enforced terms.

The lesson with the needles, that was the stick. Riley was the carrot.

He'd told Hakan that he wasn't going to give him the intel until he spoke to Riley Davis. And here he was, speaking with Riley Davis. Hakan was adhering to Mac's terms. He'd simply added a layer.

Double cross them, and what happened to him would happen to her.

There was no way either one of them could tolerate that treatment even a day. No way Jack could get to them before Hakan would have literally whatever he wanted. Only the threat of bad intel was keeping the Turk from torturing it out of both of them.

A spasm crawled across his back like a large spider, and Mac shoved himself against the wall, hard. It seemed like every damn needle had found its way into a nerve cluster, and some of the enzyme coating had come along for the ride.

"I'm sorry, there's not much in here," Riley apologized again. "I can't get any of the fixtures in the bathroom apart. They took your belt, and my earrings and bobby pins."

Mac sucked in a deep breath, then nodded, and looked up at the bulb. The filament would be too weak, and the glass too thin. "What's in the bathroom?"

"Bar of soap. Sink, toilet, shower, no paper, no curtain. Can't take the faucet apart, toilet's all plastic, can't get the showerhead off the wall. The sink cabinet is locked, I'm guessing that's where the drugs are."

Mac just nodded. There wasn't enough play in the zipties for him to get his wrists out using the soap. He could probably get one of the fixtures apart, but not with his hands behind his back, and not with how tight the restraints were. "I need something about an inch and a half long. A splinter of wood would work, except I can't get through this sealant . . ."

Riley looked at him a minute, then an odd expression crossed her face. She went to the corner behind the door, where the pile of black fabric was, and tossed it aside with a wet slap. Then she knelt at the corner, working on the floor a moment, and there was a sharp crack as she pried up a significant chunk of the surface of the particleboard. It took several attempts to bend it back and forth before she was able to tear the thick sealant, and then she carried the flat chunk of pressed wood over to him.

She was inspecting the bottom, the part that wasn't sealed, and with a triumphant grin she dug her thumbnail into it and came up with a splinter just shorter than a toothpick.

"You gotta keep up, dude."

Mac returned her grin. "That'll work."

He leaned forward and she passed him the damp wood. In less than ten seconds he found the locking strip and depressed it, easing the strap on his left wrist open.

As soon as he had his left wrist free, Mac intended to bring his arms around to the front. Instead, he found himself grabbing the zipties with a hiss as his shoulders and upper arms erupted in stabbing hot pain.

The muscles had been stretched taut for hours. Unable to contract and force the enzymes out, they'd been working on the tissues there, eating away little abscesses.

His punishment for taking the zipties off.

Mac clenched his jaw and forced himself to move, sucking air through his teeth. Riley winced and reached towards him, but he shook his head sharply. Bit by bit he brought his arms forward, letting the muscles adjust by degrees.

As bad as it was, it was _nothing_ like having the stuff put there in the first place.

When Mac finally got his wrists in front of him, his left hand was shaking too badly to hold the piece of wood, and he didn't have the strength to depress the lock even if it wasn't. Riley gently took the splinter from him, doing the honors, and as soon as she'd slipped the right cuff off him she hurled the thing across the room.

Mac did his level best to relax against the wall, forcing himself to breathe. In and out.

"If . . . it's still Thursday . . . we can't be in Turkey." He cast another look at the room, more to distract himself from the pain than because he thought he'd missed anything. "There's . . . there's no way we got out . . . if we didn't go by air."

Riley toyed uncomfortably with the chunk of particleboard before she went back to the corner and replaced it on the floor. Outside of the torn sealant making a line, it was probably invisible. She then carried the black fabric into the bathroom, and after a moment Mac heard her wringing it out.

 _Smart._

"I've heard footsteps. Sometimes what sounds like doors opening and closing, but no pattern. Sometimes thumps," Riley called from inside the bathroom. "Other noises, like city noises, but even more muffled than the elevator music."

So they were playing sounds to cover up sounds, to make sure Riley didn't figure out where she was. If they were still in a city –

But what good was hiding in an apartment building? The particleboard would muffle some noise, sure, but if Riley had put up enough of a fight – if they'd hurt her enough to make her scream – someone would have heard something. Hakan couldn't just huddle in a hole and hope no one found him. The city was going to be torn apart.

He'd looked into everything. Planes. Trains. Boats. Automobiles. Only something fast would do the trick, before the entry points into Germany were under too much scrutiny to get through. Trains were out, too easy to search. Boats were out, lock schedule was nailed down years in advance –

Mac blinked, and looked at the room again. It was small. It would fit a double bed, maybe a credenza, and that was it. He had to figure the particleboard was in half inch sheets, so assuming two layers, it bought him an inch in all directions –

And that tiny little bathroom.

Riley wandered back out, without the fabric, so she must have hung it to dry.

"Riley, describe the layout of the bathroom to me."

She glanced back in. "About six feet deep, sink and toilet side by side, corner standing shower."

Just big enough to fit everything in it.

Mac cast his mind back to the room he'd woken in. The low ceiling, the weird, smooth texture to the walls. The thick, richly colored carpeting.

Bulkhead.

He stared at her, completely stunned. "We're still in the Netherlands. We're on a ship."

Riley looked at him, almost blankly. ". . . I don't feel any motion."

Mac shook his head. Neither did he. That just meant it was large. "Not ocean faring. A river boat." He studied the door a second. It wasn't flat and plain, but had two decorative panels carved into it. The hinges looked to be brass. "A river cruise ship."

They weren't going to move quickly at all. They were going to sail luxuriously down the Rhine over a period of days, and they could disembark at literally any port along the way.

The Turks had hijacked a cruise ship. They had all the lock access they needed. All they had to do was follow its original itinerary.

"A river cruise?" Riley's eyebrows furrowed. "Mac, those ships hold, like, a hundred and fifty people, for a _week_. Where . . ." Then she stopped.

Where had they put all the passengers.

-M-

So that should clear up any lingering questions from the last couple chapters – how they got into Matty's alarm, why Jack knew there was a gun taped to the lid of the trash can, how Mac triggered the building evac. It took six chapters, but we're finally in the mix.

Thanks to those of you who gave me your opinions re: starting from the beginning vs starting with the action. I won't re-write this, but I will absolutely avoid doing this in the future. I think this story would have moved a heck of a lot faster if I started it not even at the court breakout scene, but a scene later down the road that'll hit a lot harder.

I did say this one was darker . . .


	7. Chapter 7

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning:** Extremely mild character humiliation. More sensitive readers may want to skim.

-M-

"Jesus."

Matty frowned at the screen. In the glare of the monitor, Bozer carefully examined his work, but the makeup was flawless. It must have been her expression that set him off.

"No, Jack, but we get mistaken for one another more often than you might think."

Jack Dalton was apparently long past sarcasm, and even in the shitty lighting of a dark car, Wilt could see the man was exhausted.

"Matty, you scared ten years off my life. Ten." There was no smile on his face, even the relief looked like it was hurting him. "What the _hell_ happened?"

Their boss just shook her head. "You already got the gist from Carter. Two are dead, the other two made it out of US airspace before we could track them down. They hopped a flight from Mexico to London and we lost them after that."

Jack scowled. " _Tell me_ you're not headed here."

"Where else would you like me to be, Jack? Bora Bora?" She didn't let him answer, and given Jack's expression, Bozer didn't blame her. "It's kind of hard to play dead if I'm walking around the office."

"Do you mean to use mine instead?"

The second voice was accented, and male. Though the camera didn't shift – whoever's phone was being used, Jack was the one holding it – Boze knew exactly who was in the car with Jack.

Harlan Wolff, deputy director of the Inlichtingen-en Veiligheidsdienst. And according to Mac, a personal fan of his work.

He didn't sound particularly impressed.

"No, Harlan. You've already done a great deal for us, and I appreciate it. I'll be running this op from the plane. We're about two hours from AMS."

The phone finally shifted, showing them the ceiling of a car interior, and the tops of two people's heads. It was quite easy to tell the Dutch deputy director's eyebrows from Jack's.

"I'll have security assigned to your hanger."

"I appreciate that, deputy director, but it's not necessary. I've brought a protection detail with me, and I have assets coming in from Germany and Switzerland." Matty's tone was polite but firm. "I'd prefer to keep this as compartmentalized as possible."

"Yes, you've made that clear." The phone adjusted further, until both men were in frame. "Is the Secretary General aware?"

Wilt wasn't quite sure who the secretary general was – or of what – but Matty didn't bat an eye. "Yes. INTERPOL leadership, as well as the heads of the Five Eyes and the Secretary of State have been read in. The alert only went out to intelligence organizations we believe may have been breached, or may have insiders feeding Aydin's camp information."

"I suppose I should be flattered to be included. However, I would have appreciated notice of your operations in my jurisdiction prior to the activity." His tone was dry.

Matilda Webber straightened in the chair a little, not giving a single visible indication of the pain. "I'm sorry, Harlan. I brought you in as soon as I could. The breakout was going to happen one way or another, but we didn't know how or when. My agents were there to collect intel and limit the damage."

"Your agents seem to be the ones _causing_ the damage," Harlan countered.

"Hey now. You really think it's an accident no one died?" Bozer almost winced at Jack's tone.

"I think there are half a dozen courthouse guards in Haaglanden Medical, one in serious condition," Wolff said simply. "And every politie in Holland has been activated. This is the second time you have come into my country unannounced and caused mass panic."

"And like last time, we're following up on unconfirmed intelligence." Matty made a show of moving a pair of folders that Bozer knew for a fact were empty. "Our analysts will be sharing everything we have with yours in real time, including some background and context. What I can tell you right now is that we suspect Aydin's men abducted one of our agents earlier this week. I believe you've met Riley Davis."

Harlan paused in thought, then glanced at Jack.

"Two days ago, MacGyver was contacted by one of Aydin's men, claiming to have her. MacGyver came to me, and I decided to let it play out. He'll remain embedded with the colonel to keep collateral damage to a minimum until we figure out exactly where the leak came from, and recover our other agent." Matty tapped the folders on end, as if to straighten the nonexistent contents, and set them aside. "At that time we'll take Aydin back into custody and return him to Dutch law enforcement for the continuation of his trial."

Without missing a beat, Matty turned from the monitor to motion to him. Bozer blinked at her, then hesitantly moved into frame.

"Wilt Bozer will act as our go-between for anything that isn't secure to pass electronically." Harlan refocused on the camera, and Bozer gave him a grin and a small wave.

"Hello again."

He didn't miss Jack's look of surprise, nor how quickly the other agent hid it.

"I'm leaving Jack Dalton with you to coordinate any tactical response. Please forgive his manners – or lack thereof." She shot Jack a withering look. "He's just concerned about his fellow agents."

"As am I," the deputy director assured them. "Your agent MacGyver is one of the most wanted men in Holland right now. I presume you don't want his cover broken?"

Bozer watched Matty incline her head. "If it's at all possible, I would like to limit any public exposure. No news broadcasts, no wanted posters. I understand law enforcement is already aware of his involvement, but only as Luka Morrow. I would appreciate your department encouraging capture only. And I can personally guarantee that he will not threaten any officer or citizen of Holland with deadly force."

Wolff seemed to consider that. "There is a substantial amount of evidence already gathered against him. Was that your doing?"

Bozer very carefully didn't look at Matty, and she didn't miss a beat.

"No, it wasn't. We believe Aydin intends to use MacGyver as a distraction to create false leads. To keep his cover intact, we'll need you to follow up on them as if they're legitimate."

"Then the politie will be spread even thinner," he told them. "We have already received an uptick in threats against tourist attractions in Amsterdam and beyond. No doubt they are distractions as well, but we cannot treat them as anything but credible in light of Aydin's escape and the recent unrest in Turkey itself."

"I agree." Matty took a measured breath. "I appreciate your discretion and your help, deputy director. Dalton, you are cleared to share any and all intelligence on this op with Wolff's analysts. Find our boy, and be ready to extract Riley and re-acquire Aydin."

Jack gave her a sharp nod. "You got it."

Matty disconnected.

Bozer turned and leaned his hip against the computer bay, finding his arms crossed once more over his chest. It was a tell; Cage had told him so long before he ever went to spy school, but he couldn't bring himself to care. It wasn't like everyone on the plane couldn't tell he was worried.

And it wasn't like Cage was there with them, this time.

Before he could say anything at all, Matty's phone chirped, and she picked it up off the console wearily to check the number before she put it on speaker.

"Jill. What have you got?"

"Director," Jill's voice sounded chipper, despite the hour. "We're still completing the audit but right now it looks like our network is clean. I've been going over the video footage like you asked. Mac definitely took the x-ray tube from one of the portable x-ray machines. I started an inventory in that lab, and so far the only other thing we've found missing is a vial of isotope tracing solution."

A video popped up on Matty's phone, and Bozer pushed off the console and came around behind her to watch. It was obviously footage from one of the lab security cameras, and a Mac-shaped figure was busy at one of the many freezers. The screen was too small to make out much; Bozer couldn't tell that he'd taken anything from it.

"So . . . what's an isotope tracing solution? Is that like the stuff they inject you with at the hospital to do an MRI?"

The video froze as Mac stepped away from the freezer, and his left hand was at his hip – maybe slipping something into his pocket?

"Not far off," Jill's voice sounded impressed. "We use them to tag suspects for long-range surveillance. Satellites can differentiate between isotopes and follow the suspect, as long as there's not too much environmental interference. The signal generally stays strong enough to track for about a week."

"Do we know which signature he took?" Matty was studying the image carefully.

"We do. I've been waiting until we got the all clear from our computer forensic team before I started a satellite search for it."

"And what? You think Mac injected this stuff into one of the Turks?" Bozer tried to think of a scenario in which Mac could have done that without getting caught. Knock one of them out first? But if he attacked one, they were certain to retaliate -

Matty glanced up at him. "It doesn't have to be injected, Bozer. It can be ingested any number of ways. In food or drink, absorbed through the skin, inhaled . . . I'd like to think Blondie was at least a little subtle about it." She turned back to the phone. "Send the signature to me. I'll have Dutch intelligence start scanning for it."

"Yes ma'am." Jill didn't miss a beat. "The code on the USB drive we found in Dr. Ryker's lab was definitely written by the same hacker who breached Raytheon's systems last year. It's very complex. The techs are working on it but they're having a hard time keeping it contained. It's definitely a worm, and it tries to intercept packets on a particular segment of the network." She paused, as if that was supposed to mean something to either of them. "Uh, the segment that receives alerts from the alarm systems we monitor. Like . . . your residence."

Bozer thought about that a second. "But . . . they did stop the alert from coming through. If Matty hadn't used the car's satellite connection, Carter never would've known anything was up-"

"I think that's why they attacked the cell grid," Jill interrupted apologetically. "That hack was quick and dirty, and high damage. Cellular services in Hollywood still haven't been completely restored. I think they intended to be much quieter about it, but after MacGyver broke the drive, they had to get creative."

"And maybe sloppy," Matty mused aloud. "Have you traced that back to the same hacker?"

They could almost hear Jill shaking her head. "No. The Secret Service and the FBI are leading that investigation, but right now their techs think it was Russia."

Matty scoffed. "Putin wouldn't dare."

"Well . . . they're taking your . . . uh, death . . . pretty seriously," Jill said haltingly. "So's everyone here."

Wilt could relate.

"Just because we can't find evidence of a current breach doesn't mean one didn't already happen." Matty's tone was brisk. "This stays need to know until we're absolutely sure. Send the isotope signature to me. I'll make sure it's passed along. And call me the second you have a lead on that hacker, or the two that got away last night."

"Yes Director." The call ended, and the frozen image of Mac standing in the lab blinked out.

Matila sighed, then winced and slid off the chair, gingerly touching the skin under her eyes. "Am I gonna rub this stuff off, Boze?"

That, at least, he could answer with certainty. "Not unless your fingertips are brillo pads. Look, why don't you get some rest? I can give you a touch-up before we land –"

"Drop it, Boze." His boss stiffly crossed to the other side of the fuselage, where slightly better lighting was set up. He knew her 'update' with the State Department was scheduled to begin shortly. Not that she had much else to tell the Secretary of State.

The truth was, there was no op. Not til after they'd almost killed Matty. The way the head of Phoenix security – Josh Carter – had called him. The look on everyone's faces when he'd finally been let past all the police tape and tac teams and seen the house. How stony Matty's doctor had looked when he'd left her bedroom. The scene he'd been forced to create downstairs, with two bodies laying there on the floor. Real ones.

The first makeup he'd done on Matty.

At least now she looked like herself, instead of a corpse. Under that HD-quality beauty makeup, however, she was pale and bruised. Bozer wasn't sure she'd slept more than an hour since it happened.

He sure as hell hadn't.

None of this – not one bit of it – was part of some plan that Matty had cooked up. Everything they were doing was reactionary. Riley really _was_ missing. And now Mac was too. Both of them could be dead by now, and -

And his boss was pretending that everything was fine. That she didn't have dozens of stiches in her back. That she hadn't undergone minor surgery seven hours ago. That she was perfectly fit to run a non-existent op, and fake her own death to make it work.

Bozer fell into the seat that Matty had so recently vacated, and tried to rub some moisture into his tired eyes.

"I know that look," a deep voice intoned, and Bozer glanced up to see Agent Folami wandering over. Beyond him, an agent Bozer had never met before that evening was curled up in one of the more comfortable chairs, speaking softly on a Facetime call.

"You're worried," Leo Folami continued, shifting what looked like a pale twig of wood from one side of his mouth to the other.

"Hell yeah I'm worried." Wilt leaned back into the headrest on the chair and tried to get his neck to relax. He'd never done yoga on a plane before, but it was starting to sound better and better by the second. "I had a run-in with these guys last year, in Greece. You saw what they did to Matty's. If they've had Riley all this time -"

"That's not the right question," Leo interrupted him patiently, chewing on the stick.

Bozer looked at the other agent for a second. He'd run into Leo Folami in the building here and there. Mostly in fitness classes, or late night when he was working on something, and wanted to shoot the shit with a living breathing person instead of Sparky. Leo wasn't a lab tech, and didn't have a cover with the think tank as anything other than 'security.' Which wasn't a cover, because that was what he did. He was one of the guys who stayed more or less tied to home base.

Leo was a rock. Nothing ever seemed to get to that guy. He was never stressed out, never tense, and he wasn't now, lounging against the console like a lazy cat. A six foot, seven inch cat. Wilt honestly wasn't sure why Leo's cover wasn't as a power forward for the LA Lakers.

"The right question?" Boze snorted. "What's the right question? Where's Riley? Where's Mac? Where's the colonel? How are we gonna get them outta this when the whole country thinks Mac's a terrorist – _again_?"

He couldn't bring himself to ask the question he really wanted to know.

Were they still alive. Now that the colonel was in the wind, what good were Riley and Mac to them?

. . . what good _were_ Mac and Riley to them?

"Getting Aydin out of the Hague was just the first step," Leo pointed out. "Getting free is much easier than staying that way."

"Yeah, well, don't I know it," Wilt grumbled. He was not looking forward to setting foot in Amsterdam again, even if everything had turned out to be okay in the end. "Okay, so assuming they keep Mac around to help them stay one step ahead of Wolfie-"

"Think bigger." Leo gave the stick in his mouth a suck, and Bozer finally recognized it as a piece of sugar cane. "Aydin's out. Now what?"

"Now . . . they have a big party and pat themselves on the back?"

The other agent gave him a long look. "You never served, did you."

"If by served you mean burger nirvana goodness up to my adoring public, then I did quite a bit. If you mean the army, I wrote a screenplay about a general in the KPA named Wang once."

Leo grinned. "General Wang?"

"Yeah, Mac made me change it," Bozer admitted. "Wang's a popular surname in North Korea-"

"I'm sure it is."

Wilt knew that wasn't really Leo's point. "Okay, so they're not havin' a party. They wanna get him back to Turkey, I guess to overthrow Erdogan like last time."

The other agent gave him an approving nod. "But what's not like last time?"

"Well, they're holding Mac prisoner," Bozer said bitterly, "so that's the same. And they've pissed off Matty again-"

Both agents looked towards the opposite side of the aisle, where, a few workstations down, Matty was waiting patiently for the Secretary of State to appear in his office.

"That's true. Still, what don't they have?"

Wilt hesitated. "They've still got men, somehow. At least enough to get into the United States to come after Matty. And at least four in that courthouse. Probably more than that. They might even have recruitment centers back up by now . . ." Then he stopped. "But if they did, they gotta be funding them somehow, and Count Dooku's still in prison, last I checked-"

Leo continued nodding. "Money's probably tight. What else?"

And then Bozer finally caught on. "Probably limited infrastructure, supplies, and weapons. All that came from the original coup and Dooku, and NATO got almost all of it last year."

Which meant they needed a lot more help than just getting Aydin free.

Which was a good reason to keep people like Riley and Mac around. Riley could get them into any bank in Turkey no problem. And –

And they'd already forced his best friend to help them break into a military base to get weapons once. Given enough time, they probably could force him again. This time they knew exactly what Mac was capable of.

And who was after them. What the Phoenix Foundation really was.

Which is why they'd gone after Matty.

"So the right question isn't what they're gonna do right now. It's what're they gonna do a couple days from now." Bozer sat up properly in the chair, spinning it around to access a keyboard. "So I should be lookin' for any link between Dooku's finances and anyone else in Turkey or Greece."

"It is more useful than worrying, no?"

"Can you two keep it down to a dull roar?" Matty's cross voice made them both glance over, but she wasn't looking at them. She was sitting ramrod straight in the chair, still waiting for the Secretary of State to appear on the monitor in front of her.

"And someone should be sending her crabby ass to bed," Bozer muttered out of the corner of his mouth that was not pointed at her.

"Pait will handle it. She has her ways." Leo seemed unmoved by his boss's behavior.

Bozer brought up a search screen, and started digging through the archives to find the old op. "Why do you call her Pait?"

Leo sucked in a deep breath, then looked past Bozer again, where the diminutive Asian woman was just finishing up her call. "Her English name is Patience, and that is too long to say."

That seemed like a reasonable answer. It wasn't like he ever called Mac 'MacGyver' anymore, and the reason was the same. Way simpler to yell at someone when you just had to make one noise to do it, instead of enunciating.

 _Mac, when you get back, I am gonna do a lotta yellin'. Startin' with why you didn't_ tell me _anything before you up and left!_

If what little he'd pieced together from Carter and Leo was right, Mac had been approached by the Turks the day before he left. They'd been shooting the breeze on the back deck and Mac had pretended everything was fine. Even though he knew, he _knew_ they had Riley, he knew what they were going to force him to do. And he hadn't said a word.

If the rest of what Carter had told him was true, it was because someone had hacked Mac's phone and was watching and listening to everything he did, so he probably couldn't say anything, but still -

"You are starting to worry again," the South African chided him, and Bozer sighed and rolled his shoulders.

"Sorry. It's a habit. One I didn't have until I took _this_ crazy job."

"Ah." Leo swapped the sugar cane to the opposite cheek. "I remember when you joined. We kept you in interrogation for days."

It seemed like a hundred years ago. Bozer stopped typing for a moment, thinking back. ". . . that's right. You came and brought me lunch one day."

"Yes. You were not so polite."

It hadn't been his best week. "Had a lot on my mind. Sorry about that. I'd kinda forgotten you were there."

The other agent brushed it off. "It is nothing. And in many ways, it is much the same story as Patience."

Bozer paused. ". . . an assassin tried to kill her roommate?"

There was a flash of white teeth in the dim, and Leo kept his voice low. "She thought the Phoenix was one thing, but then one day she discovered it was another. This is the first time she has ever been deployed overseas, I think." His eyes were still on her as the call ended, and she hugged her phone to her chest for a moment. "It will be hard for her to explain her sudden absence to her husband and her son."

All the lies. The lies that Mac had told him, for years, all those sudden business trips. The times Mac had flaked out on meeting him somewhere. The bruises, the broken bones.

Not for the first time, Bozer was thankful for Leanna. They might never be together, not the way they wanted to be, but at least she knew. She knew who he really worked for, and he knew who she really worked for. It probably wouldn't make him worry any less, but at least there were fewer secrets.

"I need your help with her," Leo continued softly. "She too is worrying. It does no good. We need to keep her spirits up."

Wilt focused back on the monitor as Agent Keung made her way towards the back of the plane. "Yeah, sure thing."

"Thank you." Leo watched the monitor as Boze finished putting in his search parameters. "Oh, and a word of advice. She may be called Patience, but she has none. If you irritate her too much, she'll break your arm."

Wilt blinked, and then Leo unhurriedly uncurled himself from the console and walked away.

Without the other man in his ear, parts of Matty's conversation started trickling in. ". . . really."

She definitely didn't sound any happier.

"She's the most knowledgeable on the current situation in Turkey, and has the proper clearance." The Secretary didn't seem to notice Matty's tone. "Unless you're still not confident you located all the leaks?"

Bozer finally managed to pull up the financial sheets he'd built on Count Doukas last year, and started parsing through the file, trying not to eavesdrop.

"Obviously we haven't," Matty said, just shy of snapping. "It's not as if my personal residence is a destination on Google maps."

"Be that as it may, all of her staff underwent thorough background checks last year, executed both by our agency and yours – more thoroughly for her department than others. Are you suggested we overlooked a second informant?"

. . . a second informant? The only mole they'd found at the State Department last year was that analyst, working under Director Samantha Bosch –

"No, Mr. Secretary," Matty said, in clipped tones. "Her staff was fully vetted."

"Then it's settled. I'll read Samantha in as soon as we're done here. We'll keep this as compartmentalized as possible." Then the Secretary leaned forward a little, and his voice warmed. "I'm glad to see you're unhurt, Matilda. Let me know if there's anything I can do personally to assist."

"I will, Dwight," she promised, also in a slightly less frosty voice, and then the conference ended.

Bozer barely waited for the monitor to go dark. "Are you _kiddin'_ me?! After what-"

Matty held up a hand – and put the other to her forehead. "Bozer, enough. Of course it's Bosch, Turkey is her jurisdiction. Why do you think Mac and Jack were testifying at that trial in the first place?"

He swiveled the chair so that he was facing her. "But, Matty – she practically _abandoned_ Mac the last time, she stonewalled us at every turn-"

"Yes, and last time he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," she snapped, but it lacked any real heat. "This time he released a direct threat to one of our allies, and he did it while thumbing his nose into a dozen cameras. She'll let us run with it because it's _my_ agency with egg on our face this time."

Bozer closed his mouth.

But Matty didn't say anything else about it, just kneaded her forehead. "Dammit, what I wouldn't give for some dliaudid and scotch right now."

"We don't mix alcohol with hydromorphone. And you turned down any painkillers that would make you drowsy." Seemingly out of nowhere, Agent Keung appeared with a bottle of water and a handful of something. She waited for their boss to hold out her hand, and she dropped several dark, large round tablets into it.

Matty stared at her palm a moment. "What's this?"

"Chew it, don't swallow," Keung ordered. Much to Bozer's surprise, Matty simply did as she was told. After a second, she pulled a face.

"What the hell am I eating? A stick of incense?"

"Yu jin, jiang huang, and flavoring. Less talking, more chewing."

Matty finally managed to choke down whatever it was, and she chased it with water. The medic was doing something to Matty's left ear, and tilted Matty's head to the side to get better light. When that happened, Matty could see him out of the corner of her eye.

"You track down those financials yet?"

Bozer averted his eyes immediately, turning back to the keyboard. "Uh, no, not yet."

"Well get on it. I don't want Bosch's analysts beating us to the headline." Then she made a little noise of discomfort that almost had Wilt turning back.

"I'm sorry, Director. I'd like to remind you that this is not the standard treatment for gunshot wounds or post surgical pain management-"

"Just do what you can." She sounded very, very tired.

-M-

Just like Riley had said, the door opened very quietly.

He put out his arm as he felt Riley startle awake beside him, and locked eyes with the soldier standing in the door. If his internal clock was to be believed, it was very early in the morning, and Mac had been expecting him for hours.

It was the Turk from Madurodam Park. The one that had been standing in the public observation space at the courthouse.

One of the two guards that would come get him, every morning, and take him to see his shadow.

As before, he was carrying a black hood. And as before, he wasn't alone.

Mac climbed stiffly to his feet as the other man entered the room – it wasn't a soldier he recognized. That brought the number of men Aydin had up past a dozen. As soon as he could force himself fully upright, Mac stepped between the men and Riley.

The first man glared at him, then gave the room a once-over. As soon as he spotted the discarded restraints, he pointed at them contemptuously and snapped his fingers twice.

His meaning was perfectly clear.

Rather than force the issue – and they could, and would – Mac waited the appropriate amount of time, then moved reluctantly to retrieve the restraints.

"Mac-"

"Riley, stay where you are," he ordered, as gently as he could. "I'll be fine. Hakan just wants to talk."

The restraints were within easy reach of the door and the two men standing there, and Mac knew it was coming. He knew Riley knew it was coming. They didn't even wait for him to bend all the way down before the first hit, to his left kidney. If he hadn't been so sore from the day before he might have recovered, but the second hit was to the side of his head, and Mac landed on his knees, stunned. He heard Riley shout, and he gestured behind him with his right arm, willing her to stay back. That wrist was grabbed and he was yanked around to face her.

Mac refused to make a sound even as stabbing pain shot through his abused arm and elbow, and he felt the zipties going back on, felt his left wrist grabbed and shoved into the cuff. He forced himself to pick up his head, and Riley was still there, in the corner. She was on her feet, and looked torn, but he shook his head sharply at her, and then the hood was yanked over his face.

He let them drag him to his feet and out of the room, and just like before, he started counting steps.

Thirty-one steps down a straight hall. Down sixteen steps. Right turn. Down sixteen more. The floor remained uniformly soft – carpeting – and then he almost tripped over some kind of door threshold and was turned hard left. Another forty-one steps, then a sharp left. Down thirteen hard metal steps, so steep he slipped on the second one and for a split second he thought they were going to let him tumble down the entire flight. But rough hands pulled him up short, and then turned him at the landing for thirteen more.

Ten more steps, then a right turn, and soft carpeting once more.

He was shoved into a chair, and his restraints were attached to a pair of handcuffs – probably also to the chair. Mac lifted his head a little, totally on autopilot, so when they yanked off the hood they wouldn't catch his hair.

At least, not much of it.

Mac blinked once the hood was off, and his two guards filed out the door in front of him, closing it firmly behind them. Same ivory walls, same maroon carpeting. Same room he'd woken up in before.

Hakan didn't want him to know where he was.

Which was singularly stupid if the Turk really expected him to help them evade capture. Mac shook his head to himself.

"You disapprove."

The voice came out of the silence behind him, and Mac was legitimately surprised. He managed not to jump.

"I'm disappointed," he told the door. "I thought we had a deal."

"So did I," Hakan told him quietly. "Then you changed the terms."

"You mean I enforced the terms _you_ set," Mac corrected him. "Look, this isn't going to work. I can't do anything from here."

There was a long silence, and Mac resolutely forced himself to let it stretch on.

Yesterday had been eye-opening. It hadn't occurred to him that they would do any serious damage to him. That they wouldn't want him ambulatory, like they had last time. He was no good as a distraction if he was immobilized by broken legs.

But a broken arm? A destroyed shoulder? He only needed one working arm and leg to crawl, after all. Hakan was willing to hurt him – permanently – to get what he needed. The man didn't need time or drugs. Didn't need to make him hallucinate. This was far more like the interrogations he'd been trained to handle.

It was just gonna hurt. A lot.

And if he didn't respond fast enough, the Turk would turn around and do the same to Riley. Hakan knew from the last time that the quickest way to make him capitulate was to threaten someone else.

Mac sighed, quietly. And capitulated. "You keep hands off Riley, and I'll cooperate."

"And I should believe you now?"

Mac turned his head, until he could see a shadow in his peripheral vision. "Yes. You should." He waited a beat. "What did you do with the passengers?"

He needed more than the layout of the ship. He needed to know how many men, and where they were stationed. How the boat was moving through the locks. How much of the original crew was still on board.

If any of the actual passengers were still alive.

Admitting to Hakan that he knew it was a ship was a gamble, because now the Turk knew he could try to manipulate that knowledge. It was a fine line between telling him as much truth as Mac could get away, and not making himself so overtly dangerous that Hakan simply killed him.

His shadow took an audible, measured breath. "You are very observant."

"The passengers," Mac repeated flatly. "Are they still alive?"

"And if I told you they weren't?"

Mac continued to glare out of the corner of his eye. ". . . then I'd be less inclined to help you." No point in lying about it. Hakan already knew that. Which was why he still had hope.

Getting Riley out of this was going to be hard enough. Getting a boatful of passengers – elderly and possibly starved and dehydrated passengers – off the ship was going to be almost impossible. Hakan would know that Mac would never endanger them. But keeping them – keeping them quiet, keeping them from causing problems – would be a lot of trouble. Trouble he honestly wasn't sure they'd be willing to go through.

"You would prefer I lie?"

"I would _prefer_ ," Mac growled, "that you demonstrated how different you are from Erdogan, and put them somewhere safe."

His shadow tilted his head to the side. "Then let us believe that."

Naturally the Turk wasn't going to tell him a damn thing. Mac eased his aching neck and returned to staring at the door. "Is it true?"

"It is not your concern," the Turk replied. "Your concern is keeping us from the world's watchful eyes."

"Well, unless you spared the crew that's going to be next to impossible," Mac shot back. "The locks are run by men who've had the job for forty years. Some of the schedules are still hand-written. They know every captain, every barge, every yacht, and every cruise ship. Every single one of those interactions is an opportunity for someone to notice something's off. When was the last time you saw a river cruise ship sailing empty?"

He heard fabric shift, but that was all. "The boat has the appearances of being manned and occupied."

Mac snorted. "By soldiers? What's the story there? It's a leisurely cruise for the Turkish rugby team?"

"A private company rented the rooms for a leadership retreat."

Mac thought about that a second. Actually, it wasn't a bad cover. Fewer people would be going on excursions because technically it was a working trip. Still. "And no one brought their families?"

"What makes you say that?"

Mac's gut tightened, and he remembered the little boy – Berat, if that had been his real name. The boy they'd made wear a bomb. He had undoubtedly been the son of the one of the men, even if the bomb had been real. Mac knew they weren't above using children to get what they wanted.

MacGyver kept his voice tightly controlled. "You brought _children_ on this mission?"

"Do you think the children of those who support the colonel are any safer at home, American?"

" _Yes!_ " he snapped. "Sergeant, the boat is as vulnerable to boarding as a train! If you're surrounded, no one's going anywhere!"

Behind him, he heard a quiet scoff. "In light of this information, perhaps you should share with me your insurance policy."

It took him a second to get hold of his anger. Would Hakan really risk the children of his men on this mission? Knowing what Hakan had risked to get his help, the Turk had to assume there was a high chance that it would fail. Big risk, big reward. A mission like that would be best suited to volunteers. The country was predominantly Muslim, and more than that, patriarchal in culture. The men wouldn't risk their sons. If they died here, their sons would have to live on to pass along their name, and to support the colonel and the fight.

That was a bluff. There were no kids on this boat. At the very least, no children of the soldiers. And it was highly unlikely a riverboat cruise up the Rhine would appeal to young parents with kids, or kids or teens in general. Too expensive, too boring.

"When Riley walks." He intentionally made his voice tight, like he was conflicted. Like the decision was hard.

Behind him, his shadow tutted. "If we are boarded before then, their deaths will be on you, American."

It was a golden opportunity, and Mac quashed his relief and made it sound like frustration. "Then let me out of this chair so I can do my damn job."

"You seem to be doing fine from here," the interrogator observed. "Will the locks be shut down with other transportation?"

Mac stifled a sigh, but he let his burning shoulders tense a little. "Hard to say. Depends what you've already done." When the Turk didn't volunteer anything, he continued. "If you went ahead and launched those helicopters I asked you to ground, they've already been forced to land and they know the pilots were just the hired help. They might have grounded other flights temporarily as a response, hoping to get lucky, and tracked any planes that left the Netherlands within the window of opportunity. Flights will probably resume this morning if they haven't already."

The Turk didn't say anything, and this time Mac did sigh. "You went to a lot of trouble to set me up. If you were smart, you sent a man with some of my stuff out of the city in a car or a truck. You've had him stop for gas only when he needed to, and he kept his face off camera the entire time. You sent him towards a different border than the helos. He'll abandon that vehicle at a bus or train station to be found in time for the morning commute. That trick will work a couple times, and it'll work better if you have someone basically my height and build."

Mac paused, to give Hakan time to ask questions, but the Turk was content to let him continue. It was one of the very basic tenants of interrogation – let the person you want to interrogate talk. More often than not they'd get themselves into trouble.

But this time, he wasn't starved, sleep deprived, and drugged. And he wasn't telling the Turk anything he didn't already know.

"But the ship is still a problem," he told him point blank. "You can't just make people disappear. They have relatives who will be expecting calls. You'd have to adhere to the ship's original lock schedule, which means you're parked every day all day at port. Food and supplies should be moving on and off the boat. Trash, dirty linens, water and fuel consumption will be measured and discrepancies noticed. There will be guides for the scheduled excursions expecting to give tours, and they'll be in touch with the cruise line company if they're cheated out of a payday. You might get out of one or two ports, but that'll be it before enough of a pattern emerges to tip off the Dutch search algorithms. After that you're sitting ducks, no matter how many hostages you have."

Then he shut up, because there was really nothing else to say until he got at least a little information in return.

Hakan let him sit for a good sixty seconds before he circled around, and finally entered Mac's line of sight. "As you've alluded, the typical passenger manifest is married couples over the age of sixty. They are not so connected as the younger generations. There's free wifi on the ship, but it is slow, and their passwords easy to intercept. Messages are being sent to their loved ones, in the same style as they have always written before."

So their hacker was faking emails. And he'd stated everything in a way that didn't give Mac the slightest indication whether the particular passengers on this ship were still alive.

The Turk let that sink in, and Mac glared at him. "There's also an issue with the ship's satellite that is making phone calls difficult. As for excursions, you must be aware that there is unrest in Turkey in response to Aydin's imprisonment. Due to heightened security concerns here in the Netherlands, and an increase in threats, many popular tourist attractions are being temporarily closed. The crew of the ship is of course compensating the tour guides per company policy."

So the tour guides weren't going to notice there weren't any old people on the ship, because they'd never board. And the cover that it was a business retreat would make the soldiers stand out less, particularly if they were wearing normal Western business casual.

Water consumption they could fudge by dumping the fresh water into the river during the night. Trash would be harder to fake –

Unless there were actually quite a few soldiers on board. In which case, food, fuel, and trash might be close enough to normal that no one would think it odd enough to report.

Or, if the passengers were still alive, and being kept below deck, and actually being fed.

Mac paused. "Do you have someone inside the cruiseline headquarters?"

Hakan regarded him. "We have access to their network."

Of course. The hacker. Their Riley.

So the company wasn't going to notice a damn thing unless someone else complained to them, and the complaint was made by phone instead of email.

"If you're able to keep up the façade, as long as no one's spotted in port, I doubt they'll close down the locks." It hurt to admit it, but it was true. "Air traffic delays can be made up in a matter of hours. Screwing up river traffic will have a domino effect that will take weeks to clean up and bleed into every country on the Rhine. Corporations like the cruise line will put a lot of pressure on the government to resist it, even if Dutch intelligence makes the recommendation."

"And what will Dutch intelligence do, if their recommendation isn't taken?"

"Utilize every CC TV camera along the Rhine to scan river traffic," Mac answered without hesitation. Again, nothing Hakan shouldn't have already known. "You wouldn't be able to put your men in front of the windows, and an empty-looking cruise ship would be spotted as an anomaly by a human analyst in a matter of hours."

Hakan didn't immediately say anything, apparently considering his next move, and Mac decided to make a recommendation. "If you did already send a man to plant evidence at a bus or train station, that should keep the politie busy until this afternoon. You should go ahead and plant additional evidence at a mall or a motel just over the border with the same country you had the helos headed for. They'll think you pulled a fast one, and it'll prevent them from looking at river traffic too closely until late this evening."

And no one would expect anyone except the crew to be wandering around on a cruise ship until morning.

Because the ship had to sit at port all day, they likely had only made it a little ways out of Rotterdam last night. Which meant they were still far too close to the center of Holland for the Turks to abandon the boat for another mode of transportation. They'd have to wait it out, at least another day, to make it closer to the border with Germany. From there, they could head down into Belgium and Luxembourg and try to fly out from there without attracting too much attention.

Which gave him the rest of today, this evening, and very early morning tomorrow to get himself and Riley off the boat before they were no longer useful to Hakan. He'd never honor the seventy-two hour deadline. As for the passengers and crew –

He'd have to cross that bridge when they came to it.

The Turk seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "And how would you defeat the cameras?"

Mac felt himself smile. "Actually, I have an idea."

Hakan gave him a considering look. "That you do not intend to share."

Mac left the smile on his face. "Oh, I will," he assured the man. "Tomorrow morning, when we'll need to do something about it."

The interrogator smiled back. "She will never last that long."

That mental image wiped the smirk right off Mac's face. "How many chemists and physicists did you bring on this mission, sergeant?" He meant the question to be rhetorical – he hoped zero - so Mac hurried on. "If you think you can torture a coherent science lesson out of me, you're welcome to try. But if I leave out a single step, or miscalculate quantities, we're all screwed."

His plan involved creating a reflective polarizing tint for the window glass, which would blind the cameras to anyone inside, and which a human analyst would assume was simply a feature of the ship, to improve the privacy of the passengers. It wasn't dangerous or toxic, but there was no reason to tell Hakan that.

However, it was technically illegal in both Holland and Germany – that kind of tinting wasn't permitted on trains, buses, or even cars - and while a Dutch intelligence analyst might not know that, any competing cruise line would, and they'd report it immediately if they spotted it.

The interrogator regarded him. "You would never endanger children."

Mac let his eyes flash. "Not on purpose, no. But apparently _you_ will."

It had never bothered the interrogator before, having his principles called into question, and it didn't now. "There is very little I, or any of the colonel's men, would not do to see the colonel take his rightful place as leader of our country."

"Well, maybe you should check with Aydin before you sentence everyone on this boat," Mac growled. "He's not going to be leading anything but a parade back to the Hague if you can't get him out of Holland."

Hakan stared at him a moment. "That's a very good idea," he murmured, as if to himself. Then he seemed to refocus. "Tell me, how did you escape your restraints?"

Mac was taken a little off guard, and he quickly weighed the pros and cons of telling the truth. ". . . you locked me in a room made of wood. How do you think."

The interrogator nodded to himself. "And if I put you back in that room, you will stay there?"

Hakan was offering to let him stay with Riley. In return for not attempting to escape.

Getting out during broad daylight would be difficult, but the second he and Riley cleared the outer deck, the Turks would be well and truly screwed. Even if they were gunned down, the police would be alerted, and it would turn into a gunfight that wasn't likely to end in the Turks' favor. While they remained in port, Mac had almost endless options for signaling that something was wrong.

In that room with Riley, that had been well prepared and secured, there were almost none. And there was no reason to think that anywhere else Hakan decided to stuff him – say, keep him in this room, below deck, with guards – would be any less secure.

Until he had a rock solid plan to get them out, staying with Riley was his preferred option.

"If you and your men remain hands off of Riley, and you give her some real food, I'll stay," Mac answered truthfully.

Right up until he had that plan figured out.

He had an idea about that too, but it was probably going to hurt.

A lot.

The Turk gave him a measuring look. "I believe you, American." He took a step towards him, and it took everything Mac had to hold himself still.

Yet all Hakan did was pull open the door behind him, and then step to the side, allowing one of the his two guards into the room. Naturally it was the man Mac knew.

"We're through for now," his shadow told the other soldier, and then he simply turned walked out of the room.

Mac watched him go, his apprehension ratcheting up when the soldier did the same. When he heard someone's footsteps on the narrow staircase, the guard turned back to him, and Mac decided averting his eyes was in order. Maybe if he looked cowed, the guy would give him a break.

Apparently he didn't look cowed enough.

-M-

Hakan didn't waste any time, taking the stairs two at a time and entering the main dining hall. It was still quite early, but the kitchen was active, preparing the morning meal. He crossed the hall and entered the formal sitting room, unsurprised to find Liris with a keyboard in her lap, looking waspish.

"Good morning," he greeted her, when he was within easy speaking distance, and she didn't even bother to look up. He started to wonder if she'd spent the night there. "Any issues?"

While she may have ignored his greeting, she didn't ignore an outright request for information. "None. We passed through two locks last night, and there's been no unexpected communication from either of them. According to Sahin, the captain is cooperating."

Considering his crew would be cut down one by one in front of him for anything less, Hakan was unsurprised. "Then what is it that has kept you up all night?"

She finally did grace him with a look, and he could tell at a glance he was correct. The lines of fatigue were most defined around her mouth. "The USB drive has been found."

That wasn't unexpected. "Is there a problem?"

"Not yet." She looked back at the monitors. "Their technicians are nothing compared to the little fool. However, there are many of them, and one of me. I've set up something that should keep them entertained for about seven hours or so."

Hakan glanced at his watch. "Good. You should rest. You only have a few hours before you must be on your way."

Liris sighed, and he saw immediately that she agreed. "I wanted to be sure the American doesn't require anything of me."

"He does not." Nothing MacGyver had said indicated they needed to plant false evidence electronically. Not to mention, Liris had prepped it days ago. "This evening shall be another matter, however. Sleep. I'll wake you myself when it's time."

"See that you do," she grumbled, and then she slowly untangled herself from the seat, almost as if it was she who had been tortured last night, and not the American. Hakan made a note of that as well. She was pushing herself too hard.

"Goodnight, Liris."

The woman adjusted her headscarf to massage the back of her neck, and then she disappeared towards the main staircase. Hakan turned back to the monitors to find them all locked and going dark.

She might be exhausted, but she wasn't sloppy. Much of her attention to detail had to be habit, deeply ingrained. Hakan made the decision then and there that he would let her sleep an extra hour, even if they had to create a traffic incident to make the delay plausible.

He needed Liris functional this evening.

Update received, he continued upstairs to the lobby, finding Sukru and Zeki on duty. Zeki's hand was wrapped, stabilizing his recently dislocated thumb, and Hakan nodded to the injury as both of them snapped to attention.

"Are you well?"

The soldier nodded. "Yessir. I can still shoot. It's just a precaution."

"Good." He had no intention of putting the man in such a position for a few days if he could possibly help it. "I need you to acquire a vehicle and drive to the Belgium border. Take the rest of the American's things and find a suitable place to leave them."

The soldier's eyebrows rose. "Everything, sir?"

"All of it. Leave nothing on the ship."

They'd scanned the American back in the tunnels for any transmitting devices, and again before they'd boarded the ship. Since then his things had been secured in the freezer below deck, which was thick enough to stop any transmission. Still, whatever 'insurance' the American had conceived of, it wasn't dependent on the type of transportation.

MacGyver knew how they planned to exit the country, but he wasn't bothered by it. He was concerned for the innocents aboard, certainly, but he still clearly felt that he had some control over his fate. If the mode of transportation was not a factor, the most likely reason was that he had somehow made himself trackable.

He was being kept below deck, in the lowest floor of cabins, and giving off no discernable signal. For the moment. That didn't mean he hadn't brought aboard some type of intermittent transmitter, either in his clothes or other articles.

They all needed to go. Including the clothing he was still wearing.

"Have Edric strip the American, and take those clothes as well. Leave as soon as you have everything. Sukru, assist him as needed. Wake Koray to finish out your shift."

Both the men saluted sharply, and headed towards opposite ends of the ship.

Hakan continued upstairs, to the upper deck, and found the colonel in the lounge, in deep conversation with a server. The woman still showed signs of anxiety, her hands crossed in front of her, holding herself unnaturally still. However, she seemed to be warming up to him, and had apparently brought him a coffee.

The sergeant waited politely to be recognized.

"Your daughter sounds lovely. I have no children of my own, but I do have several nieces, and they too seem enamored with these 'Shopkins.'" The colonel seemed relaxed, and he was turning a bracelet over in his hands. "I promise you, you will be returning it to her soon."

He offered her back the bracelet – and Hakan saw it bore a small, colorful charm on it – and the young Dutchwoman accepted it haltingly, then bobbed a little curtsy and scurried back to her place behind the bar. The colonel took a sip of the coffee, and Hakan felt it was appropriate to approach.

"Come, come, sergeant. No need to hover."

Hakan inclined his head. "The woman may be reunited with her daughter sooner than she thinks."

"Oh?" The colonel waved him to the seat across the table, and Hakan took it, surprised to find it so comfortable.

He too would need sleep before tonight.

"We'll need to change transportation a day sooner than expected."

Aydin's gaze sharpened. "Is there an issue?"

"Not yet." Hakan pulled out his little black book, making a couple notes before he forgot. "The American estimates Dutch intelligence will start inspecting river traffic faster than we anticipated. I have no reason to doubt him."

"You trust him?" The colonel's eyes were keen.

"In this matter, yes." He also trusted the American to sabotage them the second he thought he could. "He believes the passengers may still be on board. Right now, threats to them will keep him under control."

Aydin smiled sadly. "You have thought we could control him once before."

Point. "Even if he somehow discovers the passengers are gone, he's aware that some of the crew remain. He won't endanger them, and I doubt he would leave them behind." Which brought him to the change of itinerary. "The solution we used for the passengers remains viable, and will be even more so if we intentionally expose the ship. I've sent Denha and Feza to ensure the schedule change goes smoothly."

"And our destination?"

"Luxembourg. I've arranged helicopters to take us to the south of France, and from there we'll continue up the Mediterranean in environmental survey aircraft. We should have you in Bulgaria in under forty-eight hours."

-M-

Edric gave him a long look, disappointment radiating off him like heat. "Are you kidding me?"

"Yes. What a great joke at four in the morning," Zeki deadpanned. "The sergeant said now."

The larger man signed – and the corporal was no pipsqueak, he was nearly as tall as the colonel – and turned back to the American, who was watching them warily from the floor. He was still attached to the chair, which was also on its side, and Edric bent down and hauled both of them upright. The American agent was smart enough not to attack Edrich, and the corporal grumbled the entire time as he circled behind him to release the handcuffs.

Once that was done, he dragged the American onto his feet, and released his other restraints. The young American winced, then very cautiously brought his hands around in front of him.

He thought they were just changing up the position of the restraints.

"He's pretty well trained, isn't he," Sukru observed.

Back in the hallway, his partner scoffed. "You would be too in his position. Hurry up, I want to beat the traffic."

"Don't let him fool you. He's a pain in the ass." Then Edric switched to English. "Strip."

The American stared at him as if he didn't know what the word meant, and the corporal sighed. " _Now_."

The agent's eyes darted between the two of them, obviously judging distances, and Sukru grinned at him. "Is he really thinking about attacking us?"

"He's faster than he looks," Edric growled, and took a threatening step forward. The American gave ground, then reluctantly reached up to start unbuttoning his shirt. "I lost count of how many times this _pislik_ almost got away from us."

Sukru couldn't help himself. He started to laugh. "Look at him. He's nothing. He's half of you. Less than half. He's like, your leg. That would be like your leg attacking you."

The American agent's eyes flicked to him, openly hostile, and Sukru continued to laugh. "You're adorable," he told the American, still in Turkish, then chuckled again. "I think your leg is actually considering it."

The agent had finished unbuttoning his shirt, and he unenthusiastically shrugged out of it. Edric pointed at the chair and snapped his fingers, and the American unwillingly complied, draping the fabric over the back of the chair.

" _Today_ ," Zeki growled from the hallway.

Edric snapped his fingers several more times, encouraging their slow American friend to keep moving, and Sukru let up a little, looking back into the hallway.

"If you're so antsy, go get him some pants."

His partner gave him a flat look. "Do I look like his servant boy?"

"I think Edric's leg here is going to make a run for it and I don't wanna have to tackle a naked guy."

Zeki shrugged impatiently. "You have a gun. Just shoot him."

"We can't shoot him," Edric muttered. Then he reconsidered, and a small, ugly grin spread across his face. "Well, not fatally, anyway."

The American had gotten as far as unbuttoning his slacks, but he froze at Edric's expression, and Zeki had apparently had enough. He pushed past Edric and hit the agent with a left jab that knocked his head back into the bulkhead with a dull ring. The American staggered, but he didn't go down, and Zeki followed it with a left cross that put the agent on the ground.

He was stunned, but not out, and Zeki frowned at him, then grabbed the American's trousers by the bottoms and simply yanked them off. Then he started swearing.

Sukru winced on his behalf. "I forgot, your thumb-"

"Curse my thumb!" Zeki snarled. "And curse this _sican_ American! It was his partner than did it!" He hurled the agent's pants at the chair, then bent down again, roughly batting the American's hands away before kicking him in the stomach for good measure. "And I'm not going to stand around while you women cluck like hens and let him be!"

Clearly he'd underestimated his partner's ire, and Sukru held up his hands placatingly as Zeki ripped the agent's boxers off, half dragging the American across the floor with them. "Calm down, it was just a little fun-"

Zeki snatched up the clothes from the chair, apparently too angry to respond, and Sukru bent down and plucked off the American's socks before Zeki could notice he was still wearing them. The other soldier grabbed them out of his hands and stormed off without another word.

Edric stared after him. "Is he always like that?"

Sukru shrugged. "He's angry about yesterday." He jerked his chin at the naked American, curled up on the floor, still dazed from the blows. "This one's partner escaped alive. Special forces, like ours. Apparently quite a formidable man."

"Yeah, I saw him," Edric grumbled. "That may be for the best, though. I think the colonel would like the honors."

They both stared at the American for a second, and the agent glared back.

"I'll be right back," Sukru volunteered, and he stepped out into the hall. As amusing as it would be, if a civilian should happen to see a naked man being paraded around the ship, it would draw attention they simply didn't need. He headed for the crew lockers, and a fuming Zeki popped out from the kitchens, rifling through a large, clear plastic bag full of the American's things.

"That's all of it?" Sukru asked him lightly. His partner glared at him, then heaved a short sigh.

"Yes," he answered, much more calmly. Then he glanced back into the bag and plucked out a small bottle of hand sanitizer. He studied it for a second, then pocketed it.

Sukru raised an eyebrow. "Afraid of his germs?"

Zeki gave him a dark look. "It's the perfect size for my go bag," he said by way of explanation, and then pushed past, with a shirt, pants, and ripped boxers flapping over his shoulder like a cheap cloak.

Yes. Stealing from him would definitely teach that American who was in charge. "Safe travels," he called, but Zeki didn't respond, and Sukru shook his head and started pulling open lockers.

-M-

She'd almost drifted back to sleep when the door opened, and a very different Mac was shoved into the room. He stumbled a little but kept his feet, and the door was closed unceremoniously behind him.

Riley winced a little at the bruise she could see forming by his right eye. "Just wanted to talk, huh?"

Mac shrugged, grimacing himself, and then glanced around the room. "I don't suppose you still have that-"

Riley gestured, and Mac got the message and went to retrieve the torn-up hunk of particleboard. This time his hands were restrained in front of him. Also, his feet were bare, the sweatpants he was wearing were a little too short, and the grey tee was a lot too big.

"I see you were overdressed," Riley tried lightly, watching how stiffly he bent. To be honest, she was just glad he came back at all. Given what he'd said about his deal with the sergeant, she had more than half expected Mac to be gone most of the day, and if he did come back, to be in significantly worse condition. At least he was walking and talking this time, instead of unconscious and twitching.

 _That_ had scared her more than she wanted to admit. And him, if the way he'd woken up was any indication.

"They think I had a tracking device." Mac flipped the particleboard over and found the splinter. He had the zipties off in seconds, and this time he didn't toss them on the floor. Instead, he straightened painfully, hissing as he stretched his arms, and he carried the restraints into the bathroom with him.

She left him alone to take care of business, and then she heard him shift the toilet tank and help himself to some water. When he came back out, he looked a little disappointed, and he crossed the room to sit beside her, easing himself against the wall. The ziptie restraints, still intact, he tossed into the nearby corner.

This way he had time to put them back on _before_ they beat the crap out of him.

"You okay?"

He gave her a lopsided little grin, gingerly massaging his right bicep. "We will be."

"Awesome." She waited for him to expand on that. "So . . . you _did_ have a transmitter?"

"Not exactly." His grin slowly faded. "And I'm not sure how many passengers or crew are aboard. Captain's definitely here, though, and probably the first mate."

Which meant the Turks had hostages besides them. "So what's the plan?"

Mac's eyes settled on the door. "We wait til tonight, take the hinges off the door, and knock out the guard."

She stared at him expectantly. ". . . with the walkie talkie slash comb slash Turkish flag pin you got off some guy this morning?"

He frowned, and swapped to massaging his left shoulder. "I couldn't get anything, actually. They were pretty careful. And I just tried to get the showerhead off with the zipties, but it looks like I really do need a screwdriver for that. And if we had a screwdriver, well . . ."

"The boat would be in pieces by now," Riley finished. "So how are we getting a screwdriver?"

Mac took a deep breath, then closed his eyes and let his head rest against the wall. "Still working on that."

He didn't offer anything else, and after a while it seemed like he actually managed to fall asleep. Riley was too keyed up to follow suit, so she settled for listening to the soundtrack of the city, trying to pick out the real noises from the fake.

They let him sleep a couple hours before they came back. Just one soldier, this time, and –

And he was carrying a plate.

The man set it on the floor with a loud thunk, and Mac flinched awake at the sound. But the soldier didn't say anything to either of them. He just left, pulling the door closed behind him.

Riley stared at the plate a moment. She could see what looked like yellow scrambled eggs, and then the delicious scent of bacon wafted over to them.

Her mouth started watering instantly, and she swallowed hard. "Okay. That's different."

Mac sucked in a deep breath, then nodded to himself. "That's for you," he told her, and closed his eyes and settled back against the wall like he was going to go back to sleep.

"That's drugged." It had to be. The Turks knew by now that both of them were wise to the water, and she'd refused to eat the paste, so they were offering something a little more appetizing. Her stomach gurgled enthusiastically, and the sound was embarrassingly loud in the relative silence of the room.

Mac shook his head, eyes still closed. "No, it's not." He sounded absolutely certain. "Seriously, Ri, you haven't eaten in days. Go for it."

Still suspicious, she pushed herself to her feet and approached the plate. Besides the scrambled eggs and bacon, there were a couple slices of tomatoes. Everything was still hot.

No utensil, of course.

Riley glanced back over her shoulder, noticing that Mac was still showing no interest whatsoever. He didn't seem surprised by its arrival, and he was so sure it was safe . . .

Despite her hunger, which had erupted from a hollow pang to a ravenous gnawing, she hesitated. "Mac . . . what did you do?"

They'd brought him back in one piece. He'd been knocked around a little bit, clearly, but they hadn't tortured him. Not like before.

No one had come into the room while he was gone. In fact, no one had done more than look at her since he'd arrived.

MacGyver didn't answer.

Riley huffed a sigh, and wished it didn't smell so damn delicious. "What did you do."

After another moment, the blond opened his eyes and looked at her.

"I told him what he wanted to know," Mac said simply. "How to stay off Harlan Wolff's radar, at least for today." Then he closed his eyes again.

The last time they'd had him for three weeks. Three weeks of nonstop interrogation to get him to talk. Now, it didn't even take them three hours.

Because they were threatening her.

"Dude, I'm fine," she said softly. "You didn't have to do that."

"I know." He smiled a little, eyes still closed. "But I was going to anyway. I needed to build some trust, and besides, he was going to get the information one way or another. This way you get some breakfast out of the deal."

Oh no. " _We_ get some breakfast."

He didn't say anything, and she picked up the plate and brought it back to him. "There's plenty for two."

Mac shook his head again, eyes still closed. "I carb loaded for two days to prep for this, Riley. Trust me, I'm good. And I need you steady on your feet if we're gonna get out of here."

She still hesitated, but he didn't move or say anything else, and she decided that he had a point, and half that food was legitimately hers. She'd leave the rest of it for him, and he could either eat it or let it go to waste.

Half an hour later, she gave up and wolfed down the rest. When she'd picked the plate clean, down to the last tomato seed, she looked over to see Mac grinning, eyes still closed.

Riley whacked him in the leg with the plate.

-M-

This chapter was not beta-ed by my partner in crime, so I apologize for any glaring typos.

In summary, Matty's alive! It doesn't look like I faked any of you out with that. (I wouldn't have been either. She's way too tough to die.) But while she may not be dead, she's definitely not happy, and they're in plenty of hot water. Jack's out of jail, but stuck with Harlan Wolff, who's not exactly thrilled to find these particular agents are running around his city again. As for the colonel, it's a race to see if Hakan can get Aydin to safety before Mac makes his move. And I think there are enough clues in there that you readers have figured out exactly what that move is.

Just a quick note about Content Warnings. I try to be sensitive to readers who may be out in public, reading on their phones and who might not want to suddenly burst into tears or get squicked out. However, I also view Content Warnings as kind of spoilery. In general, I avoid using them unless I think the content is pretty seriously questionable. In my opinion, what happened to Mac this chapter was almost nothing. That being said, I know some readers disagree. Please be aware that anything equally or more explicit will be clearly marked.


	8. Chapter 8

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning:** non-explicit rape and torture themes.

EDIT: This is a repost – many, many thanks to **Johanna007** and **Suuz-5-5** for the corrections related to the Netherlands, the EU, and the Schengen Area. There might still be some inconsistencies with how Western European countries share intel, but the major issues regarding borders have been addressed. **THANK YOU!**

-M-

"The confirmation just came in. The fingerprints are a match."

Jack didn't bother to hide his eye roll. "Of _course_ they're a match. It's his damn swiss army knife."

To go with his damn phone, which Jill had traced to a large state-owned cabin in De Zoom Park just north of Belgium, off the N289. The Dutchies had found evidence of a large party staying there overnight. Way too many surfaces – and fingerprints – to have processed even a tenth of the scene at this point. It would take them days to sift through all the evidence.

It was staged. Had to be. And he was at least half sure that Mouse and Deputy Director Wolff knew that.

"He's gonna want that back, by the way," Jack added, and Mouse graced him with a look. The deputy director didn't bother, never taking his eyes off the large monitors completely covering one wall.

Harlan Wolff was basically a male, slightly older, six and a half foot tall Matty Webber. Inscrutable, irritable, and very, very smart. There wasn't much going on in the Netherlands he didn't know about. Nor much outside it.

And he was quiet. When he wasn't snapping at his analysts, he wasn't talking at all. He'd told Matty he assumed she wanted him to keep Mac's cover under wraps. He hadn't said that he agreed. Or that he would honor that request.

And Jack didn't think for a second that Matty had missed that. Or that she'd put him in Harlan's central command to 'coordinate tactical response.' He was there as her eyes and ears, and to keep them from doing anything that would endanger the op.

Not that Jack even knew what that would look like. Right now Aydin's goons had Mac and Riley. And he had bupkis.

No evidence of them leaving the tunnels under the building they'd ziplined to. No call-ins to the tip line – or at least nothing that had panned out. No luck inspecting car, rail, and air traffic. Nothing on the extensive network of CC TV cameras in the city.

At least, nothing new. Old, they had plenty of. One of the monitors was still paused on Mac's meeting at the miniature park with the tall Turk Jack had mentally tagged Lurch.

Jack was ignoring it.

"You get anything on those two pilots?"

Mouse shook her head. "Nothing additional. They are Dutch nationals, and they were hired and paid online. The funds moved through Zurich and at least a dozen other banks. I have passed the financial information to your agency. They're still in holding, and if our men get any further detail, it will come to me."

Honestly, Jack had actually had hope when two helicopters from a local news agency had been essentially stolen and flown straight to Germany. It was a good plan – move quickly from underground to overground, and get out before the perimeter could be set up. Speed was the Turks' only advantage. If Mac had cooked up that part of the escape as well, he'd know that.

The kid was too smart to put them on a train – trains were trapped on tracks, they were way too easy to stop and board. And Mac would never put that many innocents in the line of fire. Same for commercial flights and buses.

"And you're sure your buddies along the tollways know what they're looking for?"

"Groups of two to three men in small four-door vehicles," Mouse replied promptly. "The same way they left Cilingoz Tabiat Park."

Wolff turned his head towards them, but never took his eyes off the monitors. "Do we know how they entered?"

"No." The analyst sounded as frustrated as her boss. "No hits for the men in the courthouse at airports, train stations, or bus depots."

"They came in on foot." Jack had been given half a table, and he'd covered his half plus someone else's with maps. "Ditched vehicles a few miles from the border, came through here or here." The two entry points were perfect. Large towns, right on the border, no official crossing point – not that they _needed_ one, with the Schengen Area in full effect - but plenty of vehicles and highway access. "Bet these spots used to turn a nice little profit trafficking duty-free in the day. With the EU established, they gotta make a buck smuggling somethin' somehow."

Wolff abandoned the monitors for the maps, and Jack tapped the appropriate sites. "That's how I'd do it."

The deputy director studied the map a moment, then gave a short nod. "There is a significant amount of unmonitored trade in those areas," he confirmed quietly. "But it would be too dangerous to leave the same way. The local government would never condone smuggling terrorists."

"Yeah, I agree." There was usually an arrangement between a town's mayor and their sheriff about what kind of traffic could be overlooked, and what would bring the weight of the feds down on their heads. A few Turks with suspicious duffel bags here and there might be business as usual on your typical work day, but throw in a high profile escape and heightened threat levels across the country, and no one local was gonna touch Aydin's guys with a ten foot pole.

"And they must know by now that every border country is looking for them," Harlan mused aloud. "What about shipping traffic?"

"All semi-trailer trucks at weigh stations here in the Netherlands and border countries are being stopped for inspection. Barges leaving the country are also being searched." Mouse toggled something, and one of the country's many locks popped up on a monitor. "Inspectors are boarding them a few miles from exit points and completing the searches en route to prevent scheduling impacts."

Wolff scowled. "I don't care about scheduling impacts."

A tiny little flicker of amusement crossed Mouse's face, almost too quick to see, and Jack hid his own. Mouse was definitely Wolff's handler, and Harlan's military roots were showing.

There were subtle things he did that demonstrated that the deputy director was a retired Lieutenant General. His posture, for one. Ramrod straight, shoulders squared. He almost never sat down for another, though he wasn't prone to pacing. And he was just about six and a half feet tall. Jack was used to being one of the tallest guys in any room, and he had to admit he didn't care for the lanky man looming over his shoulder.

"Boat traffic's got the same problems as rail," Jack reminded him. "They'd be trapped on the river, and the locks mean interacting with the good ol' boys. High risk and slow going."

" . . . maybe for leaving the country, but not for moving around inside of it." Mouse brought up another window and started typing. "I'll notify the lock authorities to post the men we identified in their control booths."

A poster was quickly taking shape on one of the screens, and Jack wasn't surprised to see Mac's face appear with the other five. "Hey. What happened to keeping our agent on the down low?"

Public Enemy Number One and Kidney Puncher were up there next to Mac, and below those three were the assistant attorney Mac had fingered, Lurch, and Aydin. They'd never gotten a clean shot of the woman in the floral dress who'd taken down the guard behind the witness box, and Jack honestly hadn't gotten a good enough look at her himself to give a description. There'd also been another man in the courtroom, but the only thing they got of that guy was his profile, and not even that in focus.

The cameras outside the courtroom, including the hallway and court official offices, had been knocked offline only a little after the radiation detector had tripped. Wolff's analysts were working on tracking down that attack, but they hadn't gotten much further than Phoenix's.

All Jill could tell him was that it hadn't been Riley, because it had been done from inside the building.

Which meant it was probably Aydin's mystery hacker, and the asshole had actually been right there with 'em. It also meant that Riley wasn't part of the jail break. They weren't using her like they'd used Mac. She was just a hostage. As soon as Aydin was free and clear, unless they had other plans for Mac and intended to use Riley to control him, she was as good as dead.

And they had zero leads on her. No ransom. No tags on any facial rec running in the whole of the Netherlands. No INTERPOL hits at other airports in Europe and the Middle East.

Phoenix had nothing. The cameras for the hotel in Vegas had been looped. Riley went into her room and according to hotel security, never left. There were over a thousand people at the convention that night, and none of them had also mysteriously vanished around the same time. Aircraft were always being booked last minute at Vegas, so sifting through the noise was going to take days.

Days they didn't have.

Jack scrubbed his face. Hell, they didn't even know if Aydin was still in country. Harlan was coordinating the search with neighboring countries, but without the support of the CIA and other US resources, it was slow going.

As if reading his mind, Wolff turned to him. "If everything your agency has told us is true, your agent should be trying to signal us. Without that poster, he would simply be just another tourist, waving to the crowds. Law enforcement has already begun circulating his image as a person of interest."

That was true. As a US journalist and witness in Aydin's trial. "There's a big difference between 'person of interest' and bein' on a poster with five men wanted for terrorism."

"If you have another method of locating him, I am open to suggestions." The deputy director's voice was cool.

Jack frowned at him. "You just keep your satellites lookin' for that isotope tracker. It'll pop up, and when it does, we're gonna have to move fast."

"The search area is already almost too large to cover." Mouse gestured at the screen. "We don't have the satellite availability to scan all of western Europe."

And he knew exactly what she was asking for. "Look, I already told you. We can't task our own intelligence satellites without readin' the whole damn community in-"

"Yes. And your director suspects a breach." Something about the way Wolff said it set Jack's teeth on edge.

"Webber used to work for the CIA. So did I," he said shortly. "Aydin's guys got her home address from somewhere. Ain't too many people have that level of clearance."

"Hnn," Harlan responded thoughtfully. "How long do you believe they've had your Agent Davis?"

Jack turned, very slowly, until he stood toe to toe with Wolff. "If Riley Davis had _anything_ to do with that, Webber'd never have gotten off an alert. She's not givin' those guys squat."

The deputy director gave him a disapproving look. "Your confidence is misplaced."

Jack bared his teeth. "I'd stake my life on it."

"You may be betting Matilda Webber's," Harlan told him flatly. "While your agency may have intentionally embedded Agent MacGyver, Davis was taken as leverage. The Turkish Gendarmerie are known for-"

"I know what they're known for!" Jack snapped. "Me and MacGyver's cover story with Aydin wasn't a cover."

 _That_ brought the deputy director up short. "You mean-"

Jack briefly considered flashing the man his scars. "Yeah. I _mean_ ," he growled. "Trust me. If they'd'a done what they do to Riley, Webber'd be dead. The breach didn't come from her."

If they'd tried to get intel out of Riley, they would have succeeded. And it wasn't anything against her. They'd played the long game with Mac, the first time. They'd meant to methodically break him down and purposefully build him into something else. The game now-

This was the short game. If they'd gotten Matty's address out of Riley, they'd've gotten everything. Every detail about Phoenix, about him, about Mac, about Diane . . . there'd be nothing Riley wouldn't have told them. She'd have hacked Matty's alarm system herself. And the Phoenix. She'd've told them Mac would never play along.

She'd've told them everything. Just like Mac would've, if they'd had him since Monday.

Just like he would've, if they'd had _him_ since Monday.

His baby girl wasn't involved in any of this. Jack was absolutely sure. There was no way Mac would have handled it the way he was handling it if they were doing that to Riley.

"So instead of playin' the blame game, how about we find the assholes responsible and ask them, huh?" Jack gestured angrily at the monitors. "You got a whole building fulla people here, Wolfie. You can't tell me you don't have a lead on eight plus guys wandering around the city!" The image of Mac talking to Lurch was still on screen, and Jack glared at it. "Can't you at least get us audio on that meetin' Mac had?"

But it was Mouse who answered. "Those cameras don't have audio capabilities-"

"Don't give me that! We pulled together the whole enchilada from your servers last year!"

"Last year you were masking your com signals in our cellular network," Mouse replied frostily. "The cameras in Madurodam Park do not have microphones. They are physically not capable of capturing audio."

He didn't want to hear it. "Then get a lip reader in here! Something!"

" . . what about the tourist cameras?"

Mouse gave her full attention to her boss, and after a beat Jack begrudgingly did the same. Harlan couldn't have cared less. He had eyes only for the screens.

"Madurodam Park has cameras in the models to capture tourist reactions. Do we have access?"

Mouse turned back to her computer, and for a moment the room was silent. ". . . we do." A few more taps, and multiple windows popped up on the main screens. Jack had seen Riley pull this trick enough times that he knew enough to wait it out and let her do her thing. The video was in color, and soon enough she found the right models. She advanced the recording to the correct timestamp, and there, in living color, was Mac's face, like a giant peering into the portcullis of a medieval castle.

Jack found himself suddenly recalling the conversation he and Mac'd had, when they'd met up afterwards at the pub.

" _Enjoy the dollhouses?"_

" _I did actually. There was a castle you'd have really liked."_

Mouse hit a few keys, and the speakers in the ceiling of the room popped to life.

"That's really something, isn't it."

Mac continued staring into the castle – seemingly directly into the camera – before he took a deep breath and turned his head to look up. He didn't speak, but the microphones picked up the other man's voice. "It is good to see you again, American."

Jack watched Mac steel himself, then stand, and then the only thing in view were his shoes and his shins. They lost audio, and Mouse frowned and brought up a new screen. She started tweaking the ambient sound, and it seemed to suddenly drop in pitch. It wasn't as clear, but Jack could make out the Turk, still talking.

"You look well."

"Where's Riley?" Mac sounded pissed.

"You are not here to ask questions." The ambient noise rose in a hiss, and they watched Mac's feet shift. "You will put this in the safe in your hotel room."

Jack watched closely, and they all heard a crackle, like paper being folded. It was Mac's voice that finally came back. "Good talk."

"We're not finished. You will tell us your plan."

Harlan put his hand lightly on Mouse's shoulder. "Show me who else was there."

She did as she was told, pulling up every other view in that are of the park as Mac laid out the plan – without specifics – of how he intended to get Aydin out of the building. While there were many tourists around them, no one seemed to be paying the two men much attention at all.

"He's wired," Jack muttered. "Aydin's guys are listening through a wire." Then the light bulb clicked. "Why could you pick up our coms but not theirs?"

Mouse frowned. "We don't collect every radio and Bluetooth signal, Agent Dalton. We only have infrastructure for cellular data."

Jack fell silent, and on several screens, all from different angles, they watched Mac fish his phone out of his pocket. His partner stared at it a moment, and the Turk spoke into the silence. "For every question you refuse to answer, she will suffer."

Jack pointed at the monitor. "They sent him something on his phone."

But Mouse was way ahead of them. "We _should_ have a record of that call –"

"I'm telling you the truth." Mac's voice was hardly more than a growl. "I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I improvise based on the situation and what's around me. You _know_ that."

"You built a device this morning."

Jack watched Mac hesitate, then reluctantly nod and admit to it. The device that would later trigger the radiation detector. The utility tunnels in the adjacent building.

And the helicopters. Those had been Mac's idea too.

On the screen, the Turk cocked his head to the side. "And how are we going to escape the courthouse to access these tunnels?"

But Mac only had eyes for his phone. "I don't know yet. That will depend how many will be in our party." The angle wasn't great, but it was clear Mac saw something he didn't like on the phone, because he shifted, unconsciously balancing his weight on the balls of his feet.

Mac was a second away from launching himself at that guy. Whatever he was watching, it was hitting him hard.

"Be more specific."

"I don't know," Mac snapped, looking up from his phone to glare at the Turk. A new window popped up on the monitor beside him, suddenly, and there in the center of it was Riley.

"I found the video call," Mouse told them unnecessarily.

It was a shot of Riley's head and upper shoulders, and she looked like she was lying on the floor of some nondescript room. There were abrasions on her left cheekbone, they looked to be a couple days old. Her bottom lip was chapped and split and her eyes were closed. She almost looked like she was asleep.

A hand was wound through her hair, wrenching her head back, and Jack discovered the video call had audio, too, when they heard her quiet whimper.

So did Mac. He demanded details from the Turk. Numbers, weapons, and com information. Basic logistics. On the small screen, whoever's hand it was tangled in Riley's hair paused, as if he could hear as well, and in a couple of the other windows Jack saw Lurch hesitate.

". . . he's waitin' for orders," Jack muttered. "Look at him." Someone was definitely in his ear, calling the shots.

Mac saw it too, because he boldly stepped into Lurch's personal bubble. "I'm holding up my end. And I'm pretty sure no one's cuddling up to your colonel at the moment, so _leave her alone_."

Lurch smirked, and Mac's head cocked to the side in a mannerism Jack had seen a hundred times before. That arrogant, challenging little gesture a young Angus MacGyver had thrown in his face, back in that tent in Afghanistan where they'd first met. Mac was _trying_ to piss this guy off.

"Go ahead. Explaining away the bruise will be the least of my problems."

Even from the shitty angle, Jack saw the Turk winding up before Mac seemed to.

"I won't leave a bruise."

Then he sucker punched Mac right in the gut.

Mac dropped to the ground and the Turk simply turned and walked away, giving Jack that same view of Lurch that he'd seen in the photograph Good Cop and Bad Cop had flashed him. At least he knew why Lurch had hit Mac, now.

The image of Riley, still with her head pulled back, still seeming to be mostly unconscious, went to black.

Jack felt his jaw clenching. "Can you tell where that video call originated from?"

Mouse was typing furiously, but after a few seconds she shook her head. "No. We don't capture that level of information."

"Then what the hell is the point?!" Jack bit back the volume with effort. "If you're gonna spy on your own people, at least get enough intel to make it worthwhile!"

Harlan didn't take his eyes off the monitors. "We're not your NSA," he said mildly. "Mila, show me the video call again."

The window reappeared, this time from the beginning. Riley was definitely drugged. Outside of the cheek and black eye, Jack couldn't make out any other damage. Her shoulders were covered by a black shirt, and when the hand came into frame, the guy's sleeve was black as well.

At first he was gentle, he simply brushed a few strands of hair from her face, and Jack forced himself to focus on everything else. The background. Any identifying marks on the guy's hand. The lighting. Any tags on the clothes.

But there was nothing but a nondescript beige. The floor wasn't completely smooth, and it wasn't carpet. Nothing useful was in frame. No power outlets, no furniture. No distinguishing marks on the guy who was touching her, not even a mole. No watch, so they couldn't see the local time. The light seemed to be coming from above, and it was obviously artificial.

No wonder Mac hadn't told him anything about where Riley was being kept. If this was the only communication he'd gotten, Mac didn't _have_ anything. She could have been anywhere in the world.

Harlan took a few steps forward, studying the images intently. "What is the filming camera's resolution?"

"Twelve megapixel, compressed by the phone's software." Whatever the hell that meant, Mouse sounded disappointed about it. "It's too common to track down the make or model of the smartphone."

"What about the phone that was recovered this morning? Can we use it to get additional information?"

Mac's phone. The one they'd planted in that stupid cabin as a distraction.

"It'll be faked," Jack muttered. "No way they'd give it up if we could use it. It'll just be another dead end."

"He's right," Mouse agreed immediately, and Harlan actually turned and looked at her. "If what the Phoenix Foundation has sent us is correct, the phone was being used to covertly surveil Agent MacGyver. I'm almost certain they will try to use that device to do the same to us. I've already advised our technicians in the field to isolate it until it can be safely accessed."

Harlan's lips thinned. "How long will that take?"

Mouse's eyebrows furrowed as she thought. "We should have it in our building in the next few hours."

The deputy director turned his glare back to the monitors. "They are wasting our time," he growled, almost to himself. "Why put so much effort into stalling tactics?"

And they really had. Trying to take out Matty, that made sense to Jack on a couple levels. If she hadn't been so damn determined to get her agents back last year, and Cage hadn't found the connection between Doukas and Aydin, the State Department and NATO would never have gotten hold of the colonel. He'd know that going after her agents again would result in the same ruthless manhunt. Aydin almost didn't have a choice. If he wanted to stay free, Matty had to go.

And the ripple effect of other intelligence agencies being distracted by it, that was to keep the attention off him while he got out of Dodge. Harlan was always going to have a vested interest, since it was going down in his territory, but with Matty dead, the rest of the intelligence community worldwide would have put securing their own shit before any kind of manhunt.

Once Aydin was in the wind, he'd have a few months to do whatever it was he was going to do before anyone like the CIA got serious about finding him. And with Turkey warming up to Russia, Jack honestly wasn't sure the CIA would dare to step into that cluster.

But as for the fake helicopter escape, the evidence planted at the border, the convoluted financial situation that Phoenix was still trying to untangle, the multiple dead-ends with that USB stick they'd found . . . it was a whole hell of a lot of effort.

Had they actually followed Mac's plan, and had transportation waiting in Germany, they could have hopscotched halfway across the continent by now.

 _So why the hell didn't they, Mac? Why didn't they use your idea?_

The quick answer was they thought Mac had sabotaged it, or told it to someone. And it wasn't like they could have half-assed it and stayed off the grid so long, not with the entire country's police force mobilized and actively looking. They had to know long before Mac told them in the park how they were going to leave the country. They just let Mac think they needed him for that part.

So they were never gonna use Mac's plan to leave the Netherlands. They'd always had their own.

And they were soldiers. Exfil would have been planned the same way infiltration had been.

Carefully.

"There's still here," Jack said suddenly. "They're still in country."

Harlan turned from the screens to look at him. "What makes you so sure?"

"The stalling. They wanted us to think they made a mad rush for the border. They let us try to lock down a perimeter, concentrate all our efforts there, and with no sign of 'em, we'd push the search area out until the net's thin enough to slip through. They're waiting us out."

Wolff frowned. "There are few places in the Netherlands where we don't have eyes."

"Yeah, I'm aware," Jack reminded him dryly. "When we tried it, we hid out with a friend. How many Turkish expats you got here?"

"Almost three percent of the population is Turkish," Mouse informed him. "We could see how many have financial ties back to the Turkey, but it will take time . . ."

More stalling. There had to be a way to narrow it down.

Jack ran a hand through his short hair, suddenly aware of how tense his shoulders had become. His eyes came back to the image of Riley on the monitors, frozen in a sleepy wince.

If they ditched Mac's plan after he got them to the tunnels, then why the hell didn't they just kill him? There'd be no reason to keep him around. Or her. At this point, both of those agents were nothing more than a liability.

 _Don't be dead. Please don't be dead._

" . . . sir?"

The deputy director's attention slid from him to the back of the room, and Jack sent up a quick prayer before he turned as well, hoping beyond hope it was something actually useful.

And it was. Two somethings.

Or rather, two _someones_. They were wearing visitor's badges, like Jack, and their escort cleared his throat.

"They're with me," Jack interrupted, before the guy could say anything else. "Deputy Director, Agents John Tunne and Akatsutsumi Saito."

His fellow agents crossed the room and there was obligatory hand-shaking all around. Jack didn't miss how both John and Saito's eyes were fixed on the screens.

"So, they got Riley this go-round, huh." John's voice was carefully neutral.

"Yeah," Jack managed.

Saito gave a little sigh, and came to stand next to him, hands clasped behind his back. "And MacGyver, I see." Then he slowly shook his head. "That was stupid."

Jack shot him a dirty look, and the ex-Japanese SWAT grinned at him. "They should have figured out not to mess with him the first time around. And now they added Riley to the mix?" Saito made an amused noise. "Those two are gonna eat these guys for breakfast."

For just a split second, the bravado pissed him off. Couldn't Saito fucking see what they'd been doing to her? What they'd _keep_ doing to her, to keep Mac in check?

But then the words sunk in. Mac and Riley. Two of the most capable human beings he'd ever known. There was no way Mac had gone in there without a backup plan. He shoulda known they'd double cross him, and he woulda acted accordingly. Mac had more than the isotope tracker up his sleeve. He'd find a way to make himself indispensable.

And Riles . . . there was no way she was sittin' pretty like a good little hostage. She might even ham it up for the camera, and for them. But the second she had an advantage, he knew she'd take it. The way she'd handled the Zodiac knockoff, and that hacker group . . . the way she'd handled the villa attack, and what came after –

Saito was right. His kids were badasses. They'd turn the tables on Aydin's little gang of bullet sponges, and when they did, Jack needed to have their backup good and ready.

Saito glanced back up at the board, and his grin faded a little, but his confident tone did not. "Bozer only had time to give us the highlights. Care to catch us up?"

-M-

"A'ight. Saito and Tunne just caught up with Jack," Bozer confirmed, dropping his phone onto the console. "And Jill and Carter are back at it on the Phoenix end, identifyin' everyone that was in that courtroom to see if we missed anybody. You know what that means?"

"It means I don't fire any of you for at least another twenty-four hours?" Matty's attention was on her phone, so it lacked the usual venom. Her voice was getting raspy again.

"Nap time," he corrected. "There's nothing else we can do for the next little bit, and I am _beat_."

Not counting the few all-nighters he'd pulled in the actual Phoenix building in LA, this was the longest he'd ever been trapped in the same space with Matilda Webber. Even though Patience and Leo were there, doing their thing, it kinda seemed like he was alone with her, because there was no Riley with her sarcasm, no Jack with his whining, and no Mac with his . . . well, with his being Mac. Wilt was sure by now Mac would have figured out something else to keep them busy, or gone down a litany of why he was right, and their brains all needed a REM cycle or two to finish processing, or _something_.

Now it was just him. Him stuck in a tin can with his very exhausted and bad-tempered boss.

Snarks On a Plane.

Matty let her phone drop into her lap with a sigh, and Bozer braced himself with a little cringe.

" . . . you're right."

He hesitated, not relaxing his defensive position. " . . . I am? I-I mean, yeah. I am."

She was too exhausted to even glare at him. She just sat there, on the sofa bench of the passenger section, staring across the fuselage at apparently nothing. Bozer uncoiled himself in time to see Patience glance over from the galley, then calmly start fishing through her fairly substantial medical kit.

Wilt finally pushed himself out of the swivel chair and crossed to her, choosing one of the seats on the opposite side of the cabin, and Matty's eyes slowly tracked him. In profile she'd looked tired. Straight on, she looked almost expressionless. Matty took a deep breath, then closed her eyes and gently massaged the lids.

"Always know your limits when it comes to sleep, Bozer." Even her teaching voice was subdued. "Look at the big picture, and figure out where you can't make mistakes. Work backwards from that point."

"Well, I try not to make mistakes ever," he started, and her fingers suddenly stilled, so he immediately kept going. "But – right now we're still lookin' for the colonel. And other people are helpin'. So . . . when we find him, we're gonna have to head him off, and get Mac and Riley away from him. And if we screw up that part . . . then Mac or Riley could die."

Matty dropped her hands back to her lap, her eyes still closed. "Think bigger."

He didn't want to think bigger than Mac or Riley at the moment. And he certainly didn't want to consider a mistake that could end up costing either one of them their lives. "Well, I guess if the colonel gets away, that would be bad news for our relationship with Turkey. And . . . we still gotta figure out how they got your address. And then tell everyone that you're still alive." He was quiet a moment. "I guess there's a lot of politics to go along with that."

His boss gave a tired snort. "You have no idea."

Patience padded over, her bare feet making hardly a sound on the carpet, and politely cleared her throat. Matty opened her eyes long enough to accept an opened bottle of water and a couple white pills.

"What are these?"

"Tylenol," the medic told her, keeping her voice soft. "I can't give you any more ibuprofen for another few hours."

Matty popped the pills without complaint, and after she washed them down and handed off the bottle, she let herself tip over onto the pillow that had magically appeared, kicking off her black pumps in the process. "Wake me up in four hours or when Director Bosch calls, whichever comes first."

"Yes, director."

Their boss gave a tired groan, mostly into the pillow. "It's _Matty_. Why can't I get you to call me Matty?"

"Tell you what. I'll call you Matty if you'll let me actually treat you."

Strangely, the director's red-painted lips curved slightly upwards. "I see Alex has reached the age of negotiation."

The other agent quietly shook her head. "They're learning persuasive writing in English. Now he gives me three reasons why he should have his way every time he asks for something."

Matty nestled a little deeper into the pillow. "Treasure it. It'll be gone before you can blink, and then he'll be a teenager."

Patience took a seat at the end of the couch. The two of them were both short enough that they could have each laid down on opposite ends and probably not had their feet touch. "So I hear."

Bozer reclined his own seat, remembering his pseudo promise to also get some shut-eye. "How old's your son?"

"Eight," Patience told him, and her impassive face seemed to light up. "Going on twenty-three."

Bozer grinned to himself. "Yeah. They grow up so fast."

"He has his first soccer game today." Patience glanced at her watch. "It'll start soon."

"Football," Leo's resonant voice corrected from somewhere near the cockpit, and Bozer watched Keung's head roll towards the sound with a dour look.

"And if Americans called soccer football, what would they call football?"

That was easy. "Gridiron," Bozer supplied, before Leo could answer. "That's what they call it in Britain."

The diminutive Asian's eyes came back to him. "Is that so?"

"That or handegg, if you wanna be rude." Bozer settled into the chair, and kept his voice low, but unless he was mistaken, Matty had already drifted off. "A lot of countries just call it American Football, though. I helped a friend with a screenplay a few years ago about football – American football, that is, not soccer."

"Football," Leo corrected again, and Bozer shared a look with Patience.

"Is he always like that?"

"He's South African," she replied, as though that explained everything. Beside her, Matty let out a faint snore.

As if she had been waiting for such a signal, the agent quietly retook her feet and headed back for her medkit. Bozer closed his eyes, assuming she was leaving them both to sleep, but blinked them back open when he heard a tiny squeak, like a faucet turning. He was surprised to see Patience had re-appeared, this time with a small green tank of oxygen, and was fitting a soft mask around Matty's face.

Matty didn't protest. In fact, she didn't even wake up.

Bozer stared at the scene another moment, making sure he really was seeing what he was seeing. "Uh . . . is she okay?"

The medic adjusted the mask further, then gently pulled Matty's hair free of the elastic strap. "No. She was shot twice and had surgery less than twenty-four hours ago. She _should_ be in a hospital."

"Uh, yeah, no argument here," he assured her, "But . . . uhm . . . is she just asleep, or . . .?"

"Yes, she's asleep." Patience checked her watch, then reached into the thigh pocket of her tac pants and withdrew an EMT pad. She flipped through several pages before pulling out a pen and marking down the time.

Matty didn't so much as twitch.

Bozer eyed the medic suspiciously. "You said you gave her Tylenol."

"I did." The pad and pen were tucked back away. "Five hundred milligrams."

"And . . ?"

Keung gave him a cool look. "Hydrocodone."

Wilt felt his mouth fall open. "You . . . you just roofied our boss?"

The cool look turned slightly exasperated. "Roofies are typically benzodiazepines. Hydrocodone is a narcotic."

Bozer stared at her incredulously. "Are you _kidding_ me right now?!"

Keung didn't look even remotely apologetic. "Agent Carter ordered me to protect the director at all costs. That includes from herself." She bent down to the storage built in beneath the couch, and came back up with a little fleece blanket, which she spread over the sleeping woman. "She needs sleep, and relief from the pain."

"She needs to never wake up because when she does she's gonna _kill_ us!" he practically squeaked, his own fatigue completely forgotten. "You can't just give her narcotics! There are legal ramifications related to decision-making while under the influence!"

Keung's eyebrows rose fractionally, and Wilt remembered Leo's earlier warning far too late.

"Really. I had no idea," she said mildly, though her expression was stony. "I gave her a half-dose, and it won't hit her bloodstream for another twenty minutes. She's asleep right now because she's _exhausted_. The narcotics will be out of her system in six hours. She is not to be woken before then."

Bozer didn't miss the warning note in her otherwise calm voice, and he found himself leaning away from her as she straightened.

"This is the part where you say 'yes ma'am' and go to sleep," Folami stage whispered from the galley door, and the tiny Asian woman's unamused look transferred to him.

"But . . . but what if Director Bosch calls for an update?" Wilt's mouth continued, without any direction from his brain. "What if the Secretary needs her? Or the deputy director? What are we gonna tell 'em – so sorry, call back later?!"

Patience didn't look particularly concerned. "I'm sure you'll think of something." Then she turned and walked to the back of the plane.

Wilt just stared after her until she ducked out of sight into the rear compartment, then dragged his eyes back to his sleeping boss.

"I'm too young to die," he said plaintively, and he heard Leo chuckle from the galley.

-M-

Zeki crossed the back parking lot quickly, glancing over his shoulder a moment before he reached up to grab the handle. The metal squealed in protest as he shoved the door open, and he tossed in the bag without a second look, yanking the dumpster's cover shut.

He'd managed to keep his face off every camera but one, the one that was watching the back parking lot through the manager's window. It was meant to pick up guests who dropped their keys off overnight, but the Turk was reasonably sure it had sufficient resolution to get an image of his face.

The last task done, he moved purposefully to his vehicle, parked out of sight of any of the cameras, and he slid into the driver's seat and waited impatiently for Duman.

The motel was just inside Germany, and like most of the lodging available in small towns in Germany, it was functional and brutalist. Each unit was exactly the same, containing nothing more than what was absolutely required for a weary traveler. A bed, a table and two chairs, running water. Never more than half full. Everyone paid cash and no one asked questions. It wasn't a tourist spot by any stretch – it was inexpensive lodging for people traveling long distances who needed actual rack time.

Which made it the perfect place for wanted fugitives to take a breath, regroup, and get a few hours of sleep.

According to European law enforcement.

Zeki snorted. The perfect place would have been a farm about eight kilometers up the road. Subdue the family, resupply, in and out in twelve hours. European criminals were idiots.

From around the front of the motel, a tall, lean silhouette in khaki cargo pants, a faded olive t-shirt, and a ball cap rounded the corner, and Zeki reached for the keys. At the last second, he remembered, then sent a scowl in the direction of the dumpster, and rooted around in his pocket.

He pulled out the hand sanitizer just as Duman reached the passenger door, and he offered the other soldier a squirt as well, which the man accepted. Zeki shook his head with a soft chuckle as he rubbed his hands together briskly and then put the bottle away.

"What?"

"You really do look like him." The sedan started without much coaxing, and Zeki put it into gear, taking care to weave his way around the building without getting much of the vehicle on any of the cameras.

"Well, I feel like a clown," Duman complained, reaching up a thumb to scratch his forehead under the bill of the cap. "This wig is ridiculous."

"Leave it. I want to get you on a traffic cam."

"That's awfully sloppy." Duman glanced around them as they turned onto the main drag, heading towards the highway. "Gas station, maybe?"

"Think that's already been done."

"Do we actually need fuel?"

The Beamer got better mileage than the old sedan had any right to, and it still had a third of a tank. "Not yet."

Not for the first time, Zeki questioned the orders they'd been given. Leave a trail sufficient for local law enforcement to find. Which was just foolish, because anyone who was truly looking for them would know this was all for show. There was no way any of them would have stopped at a motel, let alone been caught on a camera. Bearing _that_ in mind, what they really needed to do was add a second layer. The obvious trap, and then the legitimate mistake. Something that would keep the intelligence analysts busy, not just the local men.

Something that would ring true of the American actually helping them. Not just a shape on a camera in a blond wig accompanying some of the colonel's men. This was a man who had built a rocket-propelled zipline canon from odds and ends he found in a janitor's closet and a magistrate's office. He might have served in his country's army, but he was no soldier. He wouldn't simply be tagging along with them. He would be doing something. Something unusual.

They needed something that would make Dutch and American intelligence think the American was truly here.

Something like . . .

That.

Duman gave him an odd look as he pulled smoothly into the gravel parking lot. It was roughly lunchtime, and the sleepy little polizei station seemed almost unmanned.

". . . it will be difficult for the officers to find the evidence if we kill them."

While a town full of dead police would certainly work as a distraction, that wasn't quite what he had in mind. "Go in there and steal something."

Duman gave him a blank look. With the wig and cap, it was almost creepily reminiscent of the look the American had worn earlier that morning.

"You want me to steal from the police."

Zeki nodded, eyeing the windows to see if they had been noticed as he slowly brought the vehicle to the back of the station. "Yes. No casualties." Their highly principled agent would never injure a civilian if he could avoid it. "Get caught on camera."

Duman sighed. "Anything you'd like in particular?"

It probably didn't matter. "A radio." Then he thought better of it. "And . . . something much more mundane. In fact, the less useful the object, the better."

His colleague caught on quickly. "You mean like a bookend."

Of course. Duman had actually been there in person to see the American at work. "Whatever you like."

The man adjusted the bill of his cap, then quietly exited the car and headed for the back door.

-M-

For the very first time since she'd woken up in the room, Riley felt a tiny, itsy bitsy shred of hope when the door opened.

While breakfast had been divine, there was a reason it was called breakfast. And having broken her fast, her stomach was eagerly reminding her that it was way the hell past lunchtime, and it would really, _really_ appreciate some dinner.

It didn't get dinner. It got the same woman from the day before, in her headscarf that didn't hide her face, holding what looked like a neatly folded military uniform in her hands. Mac had already half risen beside Riley, and the woman tossed the clothes carelessly onto the floor between them.

"Make yourself clean," she growled at him – and sent a glare Riley's way – before she pulled the door closed again.

Mac's eyebrows bobbed. "Nice to meet you too," he murmured to the closed door.

Riley resisted an eye roll. "At least she didn't call you 'little fool'."

"Pretty sure I was called worse this morning." Mac toed the now-collapsed pile of clothing, then knelt stiffly and started going through it.

Khaki cargo pants, olive drab tee-shirt. It wasn't camo, but it was definitely reminiscent of military colors. They'd even thrown in a pair of tan briefs and olive drab socks.

At least they weren't sending Mac off to his grisly demise going commando. "Looks like you're headed out," Riley observed lightly, and she watched Mac's hands still on the clothing.

For a second, he didn't say anything. "Listen, Riley-"

"It's cool." They hadn't really talked about it, but they didn't really need to. Mac was buying them as much time as he could, but these guys weren't idiots. Sooner or later they were going to make Mac do something else for them. That was the reason he was still alive, after all. And it was a good opportunity for him to give the Phoenix some kind of head's up about where they were.

Besides, she'd been alone the first four days, and she'd been fine. Worrying wasn't going to do either of them any good, and the last thing she wanted to make Mac feel was guilty. Clearly he already felt guilty enough.

"And honestly, Mac? You could use a shower."

Mac's back was mostly to her, and he made a show of taking a whiff of himself. "Yeah, I guess you're right," he agreed, playing along. Then he shook his head. "Didn't seem to bother them last time . . ."

"Yeah, well, last time they didn't exactly have you interacting with the locals," Riley pointed out. "I'd take that as a good sign."

Mac made an amused noise, then carried the clothes into the bathroom with him, and soon she heard the shower start. "Don't bother to wait for it to warm up. It won't," she warned.

He didn't reply, but he didn't take a very long shower either. When he finally emerged, using his oversized grey t-shirt as a towel for his hair, Riley couldn't squash down a little grin.

"Dude."

Mac looked at her quizzically, his damp hair in his face, then glanced down at himself. ". . . you liked the skinny capri sweatpants look better?"

Definitely not. These clothes actually looked like they fit him, more or less. "Nah, you just . . . Jack has this photo of you two, I guess in Afghanistan."

Mac thought about that for a second, then groaned. "Ugh, he showed that to you?"

Her grin turned into a smirk. "Oh yeah. Complete with the story."

Mac wadded up the damp t-shirt and tossed it into the corner. "Great."

"Hey, it was cute," she protested. "I mean, I had questions . . ."

"Yeah, I bet," he grumbled, but it was good-natured. "Let's just say Jack's penchant for practical jokes has been with him a long time." Then he shook his head to himself. "I looked like a drowned rat."

That was pretty accurate. "Outside of that picture, I don't think I've ever seen you in uniform."

Mac's lips quirked, and then he ran his hands through his hair again, getting it partially under control. "Even then you didn't. EOD were kind of . . . not big man on campus, but because of the job we kind of got away with stuff most everyone else didn't."

Riley nodded. "I did notice the hair."

"Yeah. I actually had some," he said, with a quiet laugh. "Stuff like that. I mean, it was always in a bandana because our bomb suits and helmets were murder under that sun. And some of the other guys grew out beards and stuff." He came back to the wall beside her, and slid down to take a seat. She noticed he was moving a little more gracefully. "But Jack was just as bad if not worse about regs."

It hadn't been Jack's best look, either, in that photo. "So I've heard."

Mac gave a little sigh. "He _is_ coming, you know."

Jack.

Riley nodded shortly. "I know."

He rolled his head towards her, so she turned and looked at him, at the raw sincerity in his eyes.

"No matter what happens next, we're going to get out of this."

Riley took a slow breath. "I know."

"They think we're either dehydrated or drugged. That you're weaker than you are. Use that. Once they've taken me, if you see an opportunity to escape, you go for it. _Promise_ me," he insisted, speaking over her attempt to interrupt him.

And he should have known better. "Mac, I'm not leaving you here -"

He turned on his hip, so that he was facing her squarely, and Riley drew herself up.

"No. _Hell_ no –"

"You won't be leaving me behind, Riley. If I don't come back tonight, it's because I've been moved to create a distraction. I won't be on the boat. I'll be out in the city."

Which was a _big_ maybe. For all they knew, the colonel's men wanted to get a mug shot and then torture him all night for whatever else he could tell them about Harlan Wolff before they put a bullet in his head.

"I won't be able to do anything for the passengers or the crew. You _can_." His face and his voice were so earnest, and it just pissed her off more.

Like she wasn't a goddamned competent agent and part of the team. He was treating her like the damsel in distress. "You wouldn't be saying this if Jack was sitting here-"

Mac scoffed. "Because Jack doesn't listen to reason. You do."

That was, as much as she hated to admit it, a good point. If they did take him below deck to torture him all night, there probably wasn't much she _could_ do about it besides get off the boat and call in backup.

Still.

Riley glared at him. "Mac-"

He growled in frustration. "Riley, _please_. Promise me if you can get off this boat, you'll do it. Get to the local authorities, and call this in to Phoenix."

And then there was no more time to argue about it.

The door opened, and Riley transferred her glare to the figure standing in the doorway, fully expecting it to be the woman, coming to collect Mac's dirty clothes. But it wasn't her. It was the pair of guards from earlier that morning, now dressed similarly to Mac. The larger one was holding a wad of black fabric in his hand.

Beside her, Mac climbed calmly to his feet, and at the soldier's dark look, he leaned down to collect the ziptie restraints he'd tossed into the nearest corner. The soldiers actually entered the room and Riley found herself standing without any memory of how she got there.

Mac again put himself between her and the soldiers, just as he'd done that morning. "Okay. I'm coming."

The shorter of the two guards glared at her for another second, then Mac had crossed the room to them, offering them the restraints. The larger soldier snatched them away from him and applied them, with Mac's hands in front of him this time, and Mac cast one last glance over his shoulder. There was an open plea in his eyes.

 _Promise me._

Riley stared at him, then closed her eyes, and gave him a slight nod.

A brief flash of relief crossed his face, then they yanked the black hood over his head, and shoved him out into the hallway, closing the door behind them.

And then she was alone.

Riley paced a little. Then she collected the sweatpants out of the bathroom and put them with the t-shirt, just for something to do. It was going to be hours before they brought him back – _if_ they brought him back – and she was wasting the energy she'd gotten from that breakfast he'd negotiated for her, but Riley couldn't bring herself to care.

He wanted her to leave him. He didn't think he was coming back.

But he was also sure – absolutely sure, without the slightest doubt – that Jack was coming for them.

And in all honesty . . . so was she. There was no way Matty was going to let this ride. No matter how bad it might look on Mac, she knew damn well that Matilda Webber was going to latch onto this with the same tenacity as she had last time, and Jack wasn't going to be anywhere else but right there, right when they needed him.

They were going to get out of this.

Together.

It hadn't been more than half an hour before the door opened again, catching her relatively close to it, and Riley took a step back, not wanting the laundry harridan to slap her again.

But it wasn't her. It was the same two soldiers.

Mac wasn't with them.

That was all her startled brain processed before the closer one reached out to grab her arm. Riley dodged him on reflex, backpeddling quickly, but the room was small, and the larger guard was the one that she'd attacked the first day, which meant he knew what she was capable of.

 _They think we're either dehydrated or drugged. That you're weaker than you are. Use that_.

She let herself hit the back wall, as if she'd misjudged where it was, and they were on her instantly. The shorter soldier pinned her with a forearm across the throat, and as she raised her hands to push him away, the larger soldier wrapped a hand around her right bicep, and she felt a sharp sting.

Riley yelped in surprise and tried to jerk away like she meant it, but it was far too late. She never even saw the syringe at all, not even when the shorter guard let her go, and she stumbled away from them, into the corner. They let her; the taller soldier said something to his colleague in Turkish, and then glanced around the room.

Shit. She wasn't wearing the hijab.

He located it easily enough and the shorter guard kept her trapped in the corner, keeping only one eye on her, and one eye on the door, which was still open.

They'd played dress-up with Mac. They'd just drugged her. Now he was looking for the hijab. She was going to be moved, odds were not to the same place Mac was going, and whether they thought she was still under the influence of whatever was in the water or not, it wouldn't take long for whatever it was they'd just given her to take effect.

Both were wearing holsters, and this time those holsters were occupied.

Riley shook her head, as if to clear it, and the same swimmy feeling she'd had earlier in the week, when she'd been drinking the water, reared its ugly head. _That was fast_ , she thought muzzily. The shorter soldier reached out for her and she let him grab her arm, stumbling into him a little. He was left-handed, and his pistol was in easy reach.

She pulled it, shoving all her weight into the guard to distract him, and she got it free of the holster, but then everything went dark. By the time she realized it was dark because there was black fabric over her head, the gun was pulled roughly from her hand, and she felt a slap, cushioned somewhat by the fabric. Riley stumbled but someone caught her, and then the fabric was ripped away, and she found herself held firmly from behind in a bear hug, while the shorter soldier calmly turned the hijab right-side in.

He muttered something, and the soldier behind her gave an ugly laugh.

-M-

As expected, they took him someplace new.

Instead of going down, once they cleared the guest cabin level, Mac was hustled up another level, and the thick plush carpeting was springy under his socked feet. There were also more people around; he couldn't make out anything but Turkish. The voices were almost exclusively male, and the chatter was relaxed.

It almost sounded like they were off duty.

He was led up another flight of stairs into what seemed to be a large space, and the smell of food cooking was wafting through it. Mac was jerked over to the right, and then shoved into a chair. The hood was twitched off his head, and once he'd blinked the light down to reasonable levels, he found he was seated at a table, covered in white linen, in the center of a large and lavish dining room.

And he wasn't alone.

The colonel regarded him coolly from the opposite side of the table, a cup of tea in his hand. He didn't say anything immediately, and Mac glanced around the room, getting his bearings.

Most of the tables along the windows were occupied by pairs of men, wearing polo shirts or dining jackets over their BDUs. It gave the impression to anyone looking into the windows that the cruise ship was at normal occupancy. The shades had been hung in such a way that the mens' faces were partially hidden, and they chatted while they drank tea and waited to be served.

And they _were_ being served; young men and women in waitstaff uniforms were buzzing from table to table, doing their jobs quietly and efficiently. Armed guards stood at every entrance, including to the kitchens, and the staff averted their eyes as they passed by them.

So a substantial number of the original crew were still on board, being forced to do their jobs at gunpoint. And Aydin had at least thirty men. Meaning they were prepared for this to go well – or prepared for it to go very badly.

Mac glanced over his shoulder, confirming there was also an armed guard on the main door that he'd been taken through, then he turned his glare on the colonel.

The older man's lips pulled back in a broad grin. "Would you like some tea?"

In response, he raised his hands, which were tightly restrained. "What do you want?"

The grin didn't fade, though the colonel's gaze sharpened. "Your wrists look better than I expected."

Mac dropped his hands back into his lap. The restraints weren't yet tight enough to cut him, and he had no desire to undo a year's worth of healing and plastic surgery. In all honesty, though the sound of them still grated on him, there were places on his wrists that were still so numb, he almost couldn't feel the zipties as anything other than a general pressure. "Didn't realize you cared."

"It is . . . professional interest, I think you say."

There was motion, on his left, and Mac glanced over as a woman came to sit at the table beside them. She seemed to pay them no attention; a headscarf covered her hair, but otherwise she was dressed in the Western style, in a simple ivory pants suit. She wasn't the same woman who had dropped off his current clothes, but something about her was familiar.

"Have you ever taken a river cruise, American?"

Mac refocused on the colonel. "Not on the Rhine." And he hadn't been on 'cruises' quite so much as 'boat chases.'

"Then we have that in common." The colonel gusted out a sigh. "When I was a boy, my grandmother took us on the Danube to see the Christkindlemarkts. She wanted to show us where Turkish goods were sold, and how Europe celebrated their winter holidays."

Beside them, there was the soft click of a smartphone taking a picture. Mac suppressed a sigh.

It was a lot of trouble just to get a photo of the two of them talking.

Aydin didn't pay any attention. "We had heard of Christmas, of course, but our family celebrated Noel, which is . . . like your New Year's Eve. The idea of Santa Claus, and Krampus, was very foreign to us. On the cruise ship, they told us to leave a shoe outside our cabin doors one night, for Santa Claus to fill with treats."

Mac gave the colonel a flat look. "Are you telling me you did all this because Santa Claus isn't real?"

Aydin smiled. It looked completely genuine. "That night, one of the other passengers became quite drunk, and when he returned to his cabin, he noticed all the shoes. He spent hours rearranging them, so that a stranger's shoe was in front of everyone's door when they woke."

MacGyver waited impatiently for Aydin to get to the point.

"We were young, so we thought it was all great fun. But it took hours for the crew and passengers to sort everything out." The colonel shook his head with a fond smile. "One man's joke caused so much trouble."

"So this is just a drunken prank," Mac concluded, "and someday we'll all have a good laugh about it?"

Aydin refused to be baited. "The drunken prank is Erdogan, American. He is but one man, and he has ruined a beautiful thing, and he has caused much chaos." The colonel moved his teacup aside, folding his massive hands together on the table. "You enjoy solving problems, do you not, American? Why not this one?"

Mac stared at him for a long second, then looked deliberately around the room. "I'd love to solve this one, colonel. Just tell me where the passengers are, and I'll get started right away."

The sarcasm earned him a chuckle. "Would it be so bad to save a country?"

There was no mistaking what the colonel was asking him, and Mac considered his next words carefully. "You want me to work for you."

"Are you happy with the things Erdogan has done in the last year?"

He was no fan of the current president of Turkey. Erdogan had been able to push through a constitutional referendum that reduced the country's parliament to nothing more than a formality, a set of figureheads with no actual power to control the government. He'd essentially made himself emperor of the country. And the political opposition in Turkey was powerless, mainly because they didn't have any fresh ideas, and they hadn't yet found a leader.

The Turkish youth had made things pretty clear in the past several months – they wanted change. And the kind of change they wanted wasn't going to come with a system rigged to keep itself exactly the way it was.

Mac mirrored the colonel, putting his hands on the table and lacing his fingers. "It's not my decision, colonel. Turkey is a sovereign country. Even if I _were_ a citizen, I would be just one among millions. That's not something I get to decide."

Aydin snorted. "No? Your leaders and their colleagues make those decisions every day, and you are their tool. Do you mean to say you trust _them_ to make those decisions? The right decisions?"

Mac pulled himself fully upright. "Not always," he admitted quietly. "But I trust that _I_ made the right decision. The first time we met, you tortured and executed three civilian non-combatants right in front of me. One of them was a twelve year old girl. There is _no_ defense that justifies that action, Colonel Aydin, and I'm not going to sit here and debate _degrees_ of murdering children."

The colonel's smile faded into something a little more dangerous. "The term is hypocrite, is it not? You served in your country's army. There is loss in war. Would you sit before me and claim your actions never resulted in the deaths of civilians? Of children?"

His gut clenched, and Mac almost turned to look for his shadow. Of course. They had his Army record. The sergeant knew the answer, would have prepped the colonel.

"I can confirm that I never tortured and executed civilians _or_ soldiers, nor ever participated in actions that intentionally led to civilian injury."

Aydin scoffed. "If you believe your actions did not result in the deaths of civilians, then you are simply deceiving yourself. Your participation in a war in any capacity means you hold shared responsibility for its outcomes."

"Colonel, you're not participating. You're _leading_!" Mac didn't realize he'd braced his hands against the table to stand until one of the men on his left openly reached for a weapon. Aydin raised a lazy hand, waving the soldier down.

Mac ignored him. "You executed non-combatants! _You_ gave the order! Once that line is crossed, it's crossed! Don't sit there and tell yourself you're any better than Erdogan because you only killed one hundred instead of two! You could rise to power tomorrow and Turkey would still be in the hands of a murderer who kills for revenge and convenience. That's not a solution. It's not even a change."

The dining hall had fallen utterly silent. The plush carpet even soaked up the sounds of other men breathing, so that for the first time, Mac actually heard a bell tolling in one of the villages they were sailing past.

Yet despite the fury being projected at them, Aydin didn't look angry. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with regret. "I grieve for the days when I too believed everything was so black and white."

Mac gave a humorless laugh and let himself fall back into his chair. "Yes, well, my principles of right and wrong are just one of my many character flaws."

He thought that would be the end of it – possibly the end of _everything_ – but the colonel cocked his head to the side, watching him intently.

"And you believe you adhere to those principles, faithfully, every day?"

Something about the question seemed like a trap. He could hear it snap down around him, but for the life of him he couldn't see it. ". . . I try."

Aydin leaned back and sighed deeply. "Well, that is all anyone can ask of us, yes, my American friend?"

It was like a signal; quiet conversations started popping back up again, as if the storm had passed. Mac glanced over, unsurprised to see that his shadow had appeared, standing by the guard at the door. The woman beside them had pulled a laptop from her bag, but the screen wasn't tilted in their direction, and he couldn't see what she was doing with it.

Probably posting the picture online somewhere, to prove he was in cahoots with Aydin.

And in all honesty, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea.

Mac wet his lips, then leaned forward again, fixing the colonel with a conciliatory look. "Colonel, you don't have to do this. You could finish the trial, accept your sentence, serve it, and come out on the other end as a respected leader on the right side of the law."

The older man's look was almost pitying. "And in twenty years, when all the good men have already fought and died, and none are left within Turkey, what will have been the point? I cannot absolve myself of their deaths as easily as you do." The colonel nodded to someone behind Mac. "You hold to those principles tightly, agent. You'll find they grow slippery."

Mac watched him, trying to figure out what the colonel was getting at, until he felt a strong hand on his shoulder encouraging him to stand. He did so, waiting for the hood, but instead he was propelled back the way he'd come, towards the dining room entrance. Sergeant Hakan was still there, observing, and the woman sitting at the table beside him closed her laptop before he could get a look.

He'd _definitely_ seen her before. But he was marched past her before he could make the connection, and brought to a stop in front of Hakan.

The interrogator inspected him from head to toe. "I see you've chosen to make the same mistake twice, American."

Refuse to work for the colonel. Mac graced him with a glare. "Your boss and I don't exactly see eye to eye."

Hakan's eyebrows twitched. "Well, you are quite small," he allowed. Then he nodded to the man on Mac's left, and he was unceremoniously shoved forward, out of the dining room.

He'd been right; there was a flight of stairs leading up to the dining level, and there at the bottom of it, stretched between his usual two guards, was a niqab-covered Riley Davis. She was upright but barely, and when her head rolled onto her shoulder, Mac saw that her eyes – the only part of her visible - were wide and glassy.

She wasn't pretending to be drugged. She _was_ drugged.

"What are you doing with her?" he demanded, bringing his guard up short. The man gave him a firm shove, and Mac pushed back to hold his position as the two guards below looked up and saw him.

Hakan said something to the guard behind Mac in Turkish, and MacGyver spun as best he could, glaring at the sergeant.

"What are you doing with Riley!"

The Turk's face was impassive. "The colonel has spent much of the last year in isolation. He desires the pleasure of her company with dinner."

Riley was one of the main reasons Aydin had _been_ in isolation. She'd found the manor, and tracked the phone.

The guard behind him got a tighter grip, and Mac fought him. "We had a deal-"

"And I am upholding it," Hakan said mildly. "You wished for her to eat."

A second guard materialized from the main doorway, obviously attracted by the noise, and Mac glanced down the stairs again. Riley had been dragged halfway up them, and she barely seemed to know where she was.

She couldn't possibly eat in that condition. Dinner was not on anyone's mind.

This was an interrogation. It might start out polite and pleasant, but it certainly wouldn't end that way.

Mac pulled himself up short as the other guard approached, as if giving up, and the guard behind him shifted his grip to allow for the other man to get a hand on. That was all he needed. Mac spun on his left foot, as if he intended to attack his current guard, and as the other soldier approached, Mac let him grab his right arm. Then he stuck out his right foot and used his original guard as a pivot point.

The approaching soldier was yanked over Mac's foot and tumbled down the stairs, very nearly dragging Mac with him. Mac managed to recover by almost pulling his original guard down on top of them, and as he latched onto the soldier's dinner jacket to steady himself, he dug his left hand into the interior pocket, grabbing the first object he could get his hands on. Then he shoved the soldier at Hakan, intending to block any attack the sergeant could launch.

Only Hakan wasn't where Mac had left him.

The interrogator knew just where to hit him. Right where his muscles were the most sore from his little trick with the needles. The first hit came from behind, low on his left shoulder, and he felt it all the way to his lungs. The second came from above, two fingers digging straight down into the nerves on the right side of his neck.

Shooting him wouldn't have been any more effective. Mac dropped to his knees, gasping around the breathtaking pain in his chest, and he jammed whatever was in his hand into his pants. A pair of boots stalked around to the front of him only a moment later. Something cool and extremely sharp found its way under his chin, the point pressing against his adam's apple, and Mac resisted the pressure that was trying to tilt his head up.

Instead, he watched Riley being dragged up the remaining stairs. She'd noticed the fight, her eyes were a little less wide, but still glassy and unfocused.

"You son of a bitch," Mac snarled, not caring if the blade cut him. Hakan wouldn't kill him; he'd have done it already if that was his intention. "The deal was hands off -"

"If the men were to take their hands away, she would fall," Hakan pointed out, voice still mild, and then Riley had been hauled past him, and Mac allowed his head to be forced up. He knew his fury was quite evident when the interrogator's normally impassive face quirked in amusement.

"If you hurt her-"

"I don't expect it will come to that," the interrogator assured him. "Who can say? Perhaps the woman will even enjoy herself."

The implication made Mac's lungs seize again, and the sergeant pulled the blade away from his throat. Hakan's fist was wrapped around the hilt, and Mac only managed to get out a single word before it connected with his left temple.

-M-

By the time he'd ensured the American was tucked snugly back in his cell - and then handled all the logistics that came with the schedule change – it was approaching an hour and a half. The men had all cycled through the evening meal, and the dining room was now mostly empty, save the table in the center. He could see at a glance that the female agent was still heavily sedated, slouched in the chair with her arms hanging over the armrests.

To her right, Liris was perched with her laptop, her lips in a thin line. To her left, the colonel had pushed back from the table and sat facing her, a little china cup in his hand.

"Come, sergeant, join us," he invited, so Hakan did, circling around to get a look at the agent.

Davis' eyes were closed, but they opened sluggishly when the sergeant pulled back the chair, and they fixed on him with a determination that surprised him. Then her lips curled.

" _You_ ," she slurred. "Yur'a doosh." Then she blinked. "Bag," she added after a moment.

The sergeant watched her eyes carefully. "I'm surprised she's still coherent."

"The entire time," Aydin said, with no small amount of admiration. "I did not understand much, but Liris tells me it is all correct."

They were speaking in Turkish, and the agent rolled her eyes closed. They didn't immediately re-open.

"Still, you are certain she will remember none of this?"

"Yes," Hakan said with surety. "The drug inducing the amnesia is extremely effective. It was the sedative dose I wasn't sure about."

The colonel grunted noncommittally, and took a sip of tea. They watched the agent roll her head lazily in the direction of Liris, who seemed determined to ignore her.

"Your prediction of her behavior was quite accurate," Aydin complimented. "She did not care at all for Liris. Once the questions were rephrased into challenges, she was quite helpful."

It was nothing that deserved the colonel's praise. Even a first year student would have known how to persuade the American to cooperate. She was an ex-con, jailed for hacking her own country's intelligence organizations. She clearly had little trust in or respect for authority, prized independence, and built her self-confidence on carefully and zealously guarded competence. Pitting her against someone just like her would provoke intense feelings of competitiveness and jealousy.

Unfortunately, given the set of Liris' mouth and shoulders, he had managed to do the same to her.

"I hope she was not too rude," Hakan offered, his tone soft.

"Not at all. I believe the colonel's English vocabulary has been significantly expanded," Liris responded in clipped tones, her fingers flying over the nigh-silent keyboard.

The other woman's voice, even speaking Turkish, was enough to rouse the American agent's ire. "Shuddup," she drawled. "An' yer python skills'r'shit."

Liris seemed to chew on her next breath, but she kept typing.

"What will become of her?" The colonel sounded thoughtful.

Hakan helped himself to the pot of tea on the table. "She'll serve as a distraction if we need one. If she should happen to survive, we would likely need to take more direct action. I do not think she gives up easily."

The colonel snorted. "I agree." Then he set down his teacup and reached for the woman.

She barely reacted as he touched her face, tugging down the fabric of the hijab. They'd probably taken off the niqab in an effort to understand her slurred words, and the colonel pulled it back gently over her head, exposing her chin and her throat. Hakan had seen it too, when they'd initially acquired her.

"Yes. There and her right shoulder. It's very clean, and it healed well."

The colonel shifted the headscarf fabric to the side, looping a finger into the neckline of the dress and stretching it towards the woman's shoulder. There was a tearing sound as several stitches popped, but the stretchy fabric gave enough to show the thin scar, there at the top of her right shoulder, where the sleeve of a tactical vest would have ended.

"I think this may be the first time I ever saw one of these healed," Aydin murmured. "The major was very good."

Hakan glanced towards Liris, who was watching the colonel with the strangest expression on her face. The moment she felt his eyes, she averted her own, and Hakan sighed lightly and leaned back in his chair as a subtle signal to the colonel.

There was another reason Liris must have so hated speaking with this woman. Major Oguzhan – Zhan - had been coercing this agent into giving him network credentials to the Phoenix Foundation for Liris when he had been shot and killed.

Had he simply killed Agent Davis immediately and finished clearing the villa, he might very well have survived.

Whether he would have survived the NATO raid on the colonel's manor was anyone's guess. But it was no surprise Liris blamed Davis for his death.

Without this one, the American agents would never have acquired the depth of information that they had. Davis bore just as much responsibility for Aydin's arrest as Webber and Dalton.

"Their agency put a great deal of work into minimizing the evidence of their injuries," the colonel mused, releasing the woman to settle back into his own chair. "I agree with your decision from a tactical perspective, sergeant, but even headless I do not think their agency will be so quick to release these assets."

"They won't have a choice." Hakan picked up his tea, pleased to find it was still quite warm. "MacGyver has been implicated beyond any doubt. If he survives, the US government will have no choice but to imprison him for the rest of his life. Given what he knows, I doubt it would be more than a year. This one, if we decide to use her, will be shot on sight."

Liris snorted softly, but didn't offer anything else.

"Well, then I suppose the language lesson is finished," Aydin murmured. "We'll be departing tomorrow?"

"Mid-morning," Hakan confirmed. "The crew will be locked in the kitchen and galley. Major Sahin has made it clear to them that they did not see or hear anything. Even if the politie convince them otherwise, we'll be long gone."

The colonel grunted. "Where is Denha now?"

"Pacing us, essentially. It would draw suspicion if they were stopped, so he's been taking his time. He could rendezvous with us as early as 0500 if needed, but I've sent him ahead to our next port of call."

"Good." The colonel stretched and then stood, and the American agent squinted open her eyes to glare at him.

"Too tall," she complained. "Asshoe."

The smile on the colonel's face was almost fond. "Ayi, were we ever as young and spirited as this?"

Hakan took his feet as well, glancing around them. "I cannot speak for you, but if I was, I would certainly have been disciplined."

The colonel gave a startled laugh, and Hakan watched the agent attempt to give them both a dirty look at the same time.

"Enjoy your evening, sergeant," the colonel chuckled, still sounding amused. "Do not let our Liris work too hard."

Hakan watched the colonel bid the man at the door good evening as well, then the sergeant did another quick survey of the room. It was nearly empty, and he crossed to the table beside them, grabbing a napkin still in its ring, and a glass of water with a few cubes floating in it.

"You may wish to move to the lounge," he advised Liris, when it didn't appear that she'd noticed the colonel had gone. She looked up, then seemed to realize what was about to happen. An ugly expression crossed her face, but she closed the laptop and stood without a word, reaching stiffly for her bag.

The American agent watched her go with a wrinkled nose, then rolled her head drunkenly back to look at him. Hakan gave her a measuring look.

"We're going to need a second glass of water, I think," he told her, in English, and then he unbuckled his belt.

-M-

Stay or go.

He didn't know how long he'd been out. Long enough for his head to stop bleeding, and the slightly tacky stain on the floor told him it had to have been between forty-five and seventy-five minutes, allowing for an average room temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. He didn't have a thermometer, but he could make guesses at the relative humidity and any chemical impact from the sealant on the particle board – median of the equation was an hour.

It took an hour for a small droplet of blood to dry to the point it no longer caused a smear when you ran your thumb over it. He'd left more than a small droplet.

Then again, it wasn't completely dry.

Since then, he estimated it'd been about an hour. Which meant it wasn't late enough, wasn't dark enough. Only a couple hours since they were eating dinner. No way he could move around the ship undetected. He probably wouldn't even make it to the main deck. There were thirty enemy soldiers, plus the crew.

 _But they'd never expect it._

Speed would be his only advantage. Speed and anger.

Mac shoved the thought aside. He didn't know. What they'd done to Riley. What they might be doing. Hakan was a master interrogator, and he was trying to take away any feeling of control. He'd been foolish to let himself believe the Turk would let them stay together, and without a phone to threaten him with, Hakan had to use other means.

He didn't know what happened to Riley. There was no point in speculating.

That's what Hakan wanted.

Mac's eyes flicked to the hinges, the brass white with soap. He'd saturated them earlier, as soon as he'd decided how they were going to get out. The door had been opened multiple times since then, and the soap had been worked well into the mechanism and the pin. All he had to do was add water and leverage, and those hinge pins would come right out.

A fake Dutch driver's license wasn't exactly a screwdriver, but he could make it work.

It was all he'd managed to steal from the soldier's pocket, and he was damn lucky it hadn't fallen out of his pants after Hakan knocked him out.

Mac fished it out of his pocket, inspecting it for lack of anything else to do. It looked the same as it had every other time he'd looked over it. Decent forgery. Not the quality as he'd expect to find in a care package, but not everyone could forge quite as well as Phoenix could. The lamination was decent enough. No signature that he could detect, which probably meant it had been made by someone who did it professionally, not just for a lark.

Money. All of this took bank. The more they spent, the bigger trail they left. Bozer would be all over it by now.

 _If they didn't kill him after I left._

He'd seen that he'd gotten a text from Bozer at the courthouse, but he'd never read it. Had no idea what it said.

Probably asking if the text they'd all gotten – enacting Myrrh – was real.

At least Boze knew enough about Phoenix mythology to get it. He'd had to explain the name to Jack. And after hearing that the Phoenix supposedly sprang up fully formed from the dead body of its father, then built an egg of cassia-bark, cinnamon, and myrrh around the corpse before flying it to the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis, his partner had simply plucked the toothpick out of his mouth and said, _isn't that shit flammable_?

It was the process the new director of Phoenix would follow when the old one had fallen.

Even if Matty was really gone, Jack and Bozer were out there. They'd split off completely from Phoenix if they had to, but they'd be there. He was counting on it, had to count on it.

If Riley had been taken off the boat, they were her best hope.

Mac slipped the fake ID back into his pocket and started pacing again, glaring at the hinges.

Stay or go. He had to decide.

Hope they brought Riley back to this room, or escape while he could and get help.

In another few hours it would be dark. They would be accustomed to this time zone by now. His best shot was three am, in the middle of a shift but the deepest part of the night when it would be hardest for the men to resist their natural circadian rhythms. He could try to enlist the crew, but they seemed pretty frightened. He'd have to find the captain first, get him to help. Which made his first stop the bridge.

And handling the thirty men between him and it.

Mac turned on his heel, continuing to pace, and glared at the door.

And it finally responded, and actually opened.

Mac hesitated, caught standing nearly in the center of the room, and somehow he wasn't surprised to see it was his old friend. The soldier's lips twisted when he spotted him, and then he shoved the door all the way open, and Mac could see he had a figure draped over his right shoulder.

A barefoot figure in a black dress.

He dumped her like refuse into the room, but Mac managed to catch her before anything more than her feet hit the ground. She gave a little cry of pain when he got his arms around her, but she was otherwise limp, and Mac only paused to make sure the door was closing before he put his back to it and carried her to the far wall.

"Riley?" he called softly, juggling her gently to the floor. "Riley, can you hear me?"

The first thing he noticed was that she was shivering. They'd put the niqab back on, and he pulled it off - niqab, hijab and all – to find that her face was wet and her teeth were chattering.

"Riley?" he tried again, and she weakly rolled her head away from him.

She was still crying.

Mac took her pulse – fast, but not dangerously so – and then ran his hands carefully down her arms, checking for any injuries. When he reached her hands, he found they were like ice. Her fingers responded to the warmth, curling loosely around his, and Mac squeezed them back for a long second before he gently pulled away.

Shivering, cold extremities, rapid pulse, rapid breathing. She was in shock.

He ran his fingertips gently along her ribs, looking for any swelling. She flinched uncoordinatedly at his touch and Mac stopped immediately.

"Riley? It's Mac. Can you open your eyes for me?"

Her head rolled towards him this time, but he didn't get her eyes, and Mac hesitated to touch her again. The fabric was black, but a cotton blend, it would show blood if there was enough of it to worry about. It was dry, and –

Mac blinked, then he picked up one of her hands, trapping it between his to warm it as he turned her wrist over.

The seam was on the outside of the fabric. He slipped a finger inside the sleeve, just to confirm he hadn't missed the detail earlier, but the interior line of stitching was smooth.

The dress was inside out.

Her body shifted towards him a little, and her fingers tightened. He rubbed her arm gently, trying to encourage circulation.

"It's okay, Riley. You're okay. I've got you."

She didn't say anything, didn't open her eyes. She just lay there, curled loosely around him, and shivered.

Mac studied her uncertainly. He didn't want to touch her, didn't want to upset her any more, but he wasn't going to get her warmed up this way. Murmuring apologies, he slipped an arm under her back, sitting her up, and then scooted behind her into the corner. He drew her up into his lap as gently as he could, still talking. He didn't even know what he was saying, but it was working; she didn't flinch away from him again.

Instead, she curled a little onto her side, huddling against him, and Mac gently wrapped his arms around her, and tucked her head under his chin.

"I've got you, Riley. You're safe. You're safe now."

The words got stuck in his throat, and Mac hugged her tighter.

It was a long time before she stopped shivering.

-M-

Given the tepid response to last chapter, I can only imagine what you folks are going to say (or not say) about this one. I'm sorry about the cliffie, and I'm afraid the next two chapters will not be much better on that front.

In summary – Jack's finally making a little headway in clearing Mac's name, but it's an uphill battle. He also finally got some reinforcements, if he only knew where to send them. Bozer finds himself unwillingly filling Matty's shoes – for at least six hours, anyway. Colonel Aydin is one night away from what seems to be a clean escape. And Mac's plan might have finally worked - just a little bit too late.

And again, a special thanks to **Johanna007** and **Suuz-5-5** for their corrections! It's really important to me to get things right, and I really appreciate your help.


	9. Chapter 9

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **NOTE** : For those who didn't notice – I reposted Chapter 8 after fixing a few inaccuracies related to the EU and the Schengen Area – essentially, how border security works in Europe at the moment. So super special thanks to **Johanna007** and **Suuz-5-5** for their corrections! It's really important to me to get things right, and I really appreciate your help.

-M-

 **12 Hours Earlier**

"I'm sending you everything we have on everyone we couldn't immediately clear." Jill Morgan's red-blonde hair was the only thing in frame as she bent to look at her tablet. "There's about twenty people who were there in that courtroom who have clearances above my pay grade. Mostly the NATO and UN reps who were in the jury. Including the Greek representative."

Bozer groaned and rolled his eyes. "Great. Just what I wanted to hear."

Her black spectacles came back into view, perched over a sad smile. "I didn't find any financial links between Matraxia and Doukas, but that's more _your_ wheelhouse."

The file arrived at nearly the same time, and Bozer started scrolling through it. A bunch of muckity mucks from various governments, some chick from the UN, a few no-name people who seemed to just be observing, and some of the court officials. "Thanks, Jill. I appreciate it."

"Now, as far as financials I _did_ find, there's a bunch of Turkish business going on inside the Netherlands. Turkish expats only make up like three percent of the population, but that three percent is pretty industrious. Textile finishing, tomato farming, shoemaking, lumber yards, cadmium mining . . . it's going to take a while to go through all this. Because of the way Turkey taxes their expats, all of these people had a peripheral relationship to the Turkish government, and potentially General Doukas."

"Or people who think like him," Wilt muttered. "Thanks Jill. This should keep me busy for a while."

"Well, you know what they say. Better busy than bored . . ." The platitude sounded a little hesitant. "You holding up okay?"

Bozer chanced a glance into the cabin of the plane, where the blanket-covered lump attached to the oxygen tank hadn't moved. "Lemme tell ya. I feel like I'm in a tiger cage and the tiger's gonna wake up any second. Distractions, I got plenty of."

He hadn't had a chance to think up any new and terrible scenarios related to Mac getting repeatedly shot and Riley being dragged away to the desert, never to be seen again for at least the last thirty seconds.

It was last year all over again.

Wilt's eyes slid past Matty, to where Patience was curled up in a seat with her phone, and Folami was leaning comfortably on the cockpit doorframe, chatting with the pilot. Both of them were still in their vests. If the Maroon Berets attacked the plane, if they put a sniper outside –

Nope. Nope nope nope.

Bozer dragged his mind by the scruff of its neck back to the videochat at hand. "Speaking of distractions, how're _you_ doin'? You and Carter are the only two, right?"

The only two people in Phoenix HQ in the know.

Jill's eyes flicked towards the lab door. "So far," she sighed. "Agent Hannagahn's funeral is later this week. I'm on the memorial planning committee, and we want a joint memorial here before the 'real' memorial for Matty," and she mimed quotes, "and it's hard to sort out the stuff that we're actually going to do for Hannagahn but obviously cancel the rest . . ." She shook her head. "But the hardest thing is walking down the hallway. Did you know Matty was mentoring like thirty people?"

Bozer glanced at the little sleeping pile of blankets again. "I'm not surprised."

"She's involved in just about every community outreach project, she's the one who arranged all the birthday gifts for staff, on top of all the project and budget work . . . Greg was saying in the hallway that she found out his grandmother's service dog had cancer and arranged to get the top UCLA veterinarian to make house calls twice a week until it was in remission."

He found himself smiling. "That's our boss." Then his smile faded. "Who is gonna feed me to that dog when she wakes up . . ."

The skin between Jill's eyebrows puckered. "Uh . . . okay . . . what-"

The console beside him blinked, and the software announced the video call was coming from the State Department.

Bozer sat bolt upright in the chair, staring at it in horror, and then up above the camera set into the console, where a digital clock told him it was right about four hours on the nose.

It was Director Bosch.

His eyes shot back to the couch, where he was quite sure Matty could be woken and set into fight mode in about two point two seconds, and then beyond her, where Agent Keung was still sitting in the chair, staring at him.

She shook her head, once.

Bozer took a moment to wonder if you could just send a director of the State Department straight to voicemail.

 _If you were Matty you could._

But he was not Matty, and god only knew what that sanctimonious witch would do if she didn't get her update. Probably put a kill order out on Mac and Riley, like she'd wanted to do last time.

Wilt glanced down at himself, straightened his brown tee-shirt as best he could, then frantically searched the area around him, and at the last second threw a pair of headphones around the back of his neck. Then he sank into the chair in front of the camera, got a quick read on his posture in the mini-monitor, and tapped the screen to accept the encrypted video call.

And there behind her impressive looking desk was Director Samantha Bosch.

The woman barely glanced at him. "Let me know when Matilda's ready for me."

Bozer affixed a polite smile on his face. "Good morning, Director Bosch. Director Webber is in another meeting. However, I would be happy to provide you an update."

He got approximately twenty percent more of her attention, and a small uptick in general annoyance. "How much longer is she likely to be indisposed?"

Wilt did his best to keep his smile bland. "They've just started, Director. I honestly don't know."

She raised her face – not to the camera, but to her computer, probably checking her calendar. "I don't see anything on the books."

"I . . . don't know what to tell you, Director." If she was jealous she'd been left off a non-existent meeting, so be it. FOMO. Not just for the little people.

Her eyes flicked back to the camera. "You don't know very much, do you, Agent . . ?"

"Bozer, ma'am. Wilt Bozer."

Though it was hard to tell on the small monitor, a brief flash of recognition seemed to cross her face. "Ah yes. You were involved last time."

It was hard to tell from her tone what she thought about that, and Wilt decided to remain pleasantly aloof. "If you mean involved in the capture and arrest of Colonel Aydin last year, yes ma'am."

"And how is his re-capture and arrest proceeding?"

He would love to rub her face in a full capture no casualty update, but unfortunately, that's not what they had. Still. She was leadership. She didn't want details. She wanted concrete steps in that general direction.

"We're closing in on several of his known associates. They've left false evidence trails in several spots along the Netherlands – Germany border, indicating they're still in country. The hacker we believe is helping Aydin was in the courthouse at the time of the escape, and-"

"Release," Bosch corrected mildly, and Bozer stuttered to a halt.

"I –"

"You meant release," she told him. "The hacker was in the courthouse when Agent MacGyver _released_ Colonel Adyin. Continue."

The smile was taking effort. ". . . we're in the process of narrowing down the suspect list. Once the hacker is identified, we'll be able to –"

"Add the face to the growing list of people the Dutch deputy director can't seem to find," Bosch broke in. "Do you have any actual progress to report?"

There were many different ways he could respond to that. In this case, Matty would choose diplomacy. No point in antagonizing one of the few agencies that could actually help. "We've confirmed that Agent Davis is alive."

Bosch cocked her head, then laced her fingers together and set them daintily on her desk. "Excellent. So we know that they intend to continue blackmailing your agency. You're still useful to them." It was sarcastic, but then she straightened slightly. "Actually . . . we might be able to use that."

Matty wouldn't rise to the bait, so neither did Wilt. "Once MacGyver has located her he'll signal and –"

"No, Matilda can't possibly risk leaving him in play," Samantha mused, as if to herself. "They've already demonstrated they can compromise him. Not to mention my counterparts in Turkey would never tolerate it."

"Oh?" Bozer inquired politely.

Her expression shifted back to annoyance. "Surely you weren't thinking they wouldn't recognize him? He may have been undercover, and he may be the darling of DXS, but MacGyver's diplomatic plutonium. The sheer amount of damage he caused in just three short weeks was almost catastrophic. And putting him back in the field at all, let alone on the same _continent_ as Aydin, was a huge mistake. Erdogan's government has already demanded the Secretary fly to Istanbul personally to explain why a NATO ally just broke one of their most dangerous war criminals out of a slam dunk conviction, and then _lost him_."

Bozer stared at her a moment, then gave her a big smile. "It must be such a relief for you, director, that they're finally distracted from the role the State Department played last year. As for Agent MacGyver being in that courtroom with the colonel, diplomatic plutonium or not, wasn't his presence there a direct request from _your_ department?"

Her eyes narrowed, but he didn't give her a chance to respond. "You can assure the Secretary, and our allies in Turkey, that Aydin was going to escape custody with or without interference, and Agent MacGyver was able to ensure there were minimal casualties and no deaths. The colonel remains in the Netherlands, and when Agent MacGyver has completed his mission of recovering Agent Davis, identifying the hacker, and determining the scope of the intelligence breach, Aydin will be returned to his cell in the Hague."

"You mean if Davis herself wasn't the breach," Bosch pointed out coldly. "They've compromised your agents before. Unless you have evidence to the contrary?"

"Well, it _did_ take us a little time to unmask the analyst leaking classified intel to Aydin last year, so you can understand why Director Webber wants to make sure we're . . . especially thorough this time."

Bosch drew herself up stiffly. "If you're insinuating the leak came from my department –"

Wilt gave her a beatific smile. "Of course not, director. When she and the other directors have finished their meeting, I'll let Webber know that you wanted to speak with her."

When she finally replied, Bosch's voice was frosty. "See that you do, Agent Bozer."

The call disconnected.

He sucked in a deep breath through his nose, then out through his mouth, and debated a few light yoga exercises to calm himself down.

Maybe a nice locust pose. Or maybe corpse.

He might as well get used to it.

Wilt reached slightly trembling hands up to his neck, and pulled off the headphones. Honestly, he didn't even know why he'd grabbed them in the first place. Just trying to look busy?

" . . . holy _shit_ ," a voice breathed, to his left, and Bozer realized with a start that he'd left his phone – and his video chat with Jill – still connected.

Bozer shakily picked up his phone, sure that his expression was a mirror of hers.

"Oh my God, Bozer . . .

He cringed. "That was as bad as I think it was, wasn't it."

Her eyes were nearly the same size as her glasses lenses. "Uh, well it's not good! She'll never forget your name, that's for sure." The analyst shook her head in amazement. "But . . . it was kinda awesome, too. Matty's not really in another meeting, is she?"

He didn't answer, but clearly it was written all over his face, because Jill let out an incredulous scoff. "She's going to be so pissed when she finds out-"

"She's not gonna find out," he muttered, dragging the phone closer. "Who's gonna tell her?"

He got an emphatic shake of her head. "Not me," she promised. "I'll let you get back to it, just . . . try not to start any international incidents while you're over there, okay?"

"This is Riley and Mac we're talkin' about. I make _no_ promises." Then he shot her a little grin. "Thanks for your help, Jill."

This time he did disconnect the call, just in time to notice the board blinking at him again. Bozer had to force himself to look at the caller ID. ' _Course that was too easy, man, she's callin' back to ream me a new –_

It was Jack.

Bozer gusted out a huge breath, and accepted the call. It was from Jack's phone, and he could see most of his friend's face, and some of the ceiling.

"What's the word, Boze?"

The younger man shook his head. "Sharks, man. Sharks. I am _glad_ I do not have Matty's job."

"Everyone's glad they don't have Matty's job," Jack stated, as if it was well-known fact. "She there, or tied up with one of them windbags on the Hill?"

Wilt chanced a glance at the blanket pile. It was still there. "Agent Keung is . . . uh, doing something with her."

Jack's eyebrows twitched. "Pait? Yeah, she's got her work cut out for her. How's she doing? Really?"

Bozer shook his head with a sigh. "Fine, I guess. I mean, walkin' and talkin', which is more than most of the world thinks at the mo'."

"Listen, man, don't worry about the politics. Matty's the best there is at what she does."

"Even if what she does best isn't very nice?" Boze shot back, completing the other half of the phrase Wolverine from the X-Men used to say.

Jack grinned. "Straight from the book. _Nice_."

"Man, you know I read comics back in the day." Then he got back on track, and picked up the tablet. "Jill sent us a list of the people in the courthouse. She took a pass at eliminating a few, but couldn't get much on a couple dozen. I'm sendin' 'em to you now."

"And one of 'em is our hacker, huh?"

"More likely than not." Of course, putting a name to a face was, to Director Bosch's point, only the first step in actually catching the asshole. That hacker was likely with the colonel now. Wherever _he_ was.

"She also looked up some financials, and I'm diggin' into that next. If I find anything that looks good, I'll send it your way."

"Copy." Jack glanced away from the phone, then brought it a little closer to his face. "Listen. I know we're not supposed to tip off anybody, but we need help. The eye in the sky kind. I know our girl could just boopity-boop it, but she ain't here. Can Jill do somethin' for us?"

Wilt hesitated. "Uhhh . . . I mean, I can ask-"

Jack sniffed. "Nah man, I'll ask her. She can't say no to this face."

Bozer felt his eyebrows bunch. " . . . you're right, Jack." He'd learned that trick from Mac several years ago – sometimes it was just easier to agree with him.

"Damn skippy. Tell Matty I said hi. We find anything, you'll know."

"Back atcha."

Somehow he felt a little less nauseous after that second call, and Bozer scrubbed his face – and noted it was probably time for a shave, which meant probably time for a shower – but the three hour nap he'd gotten wasn't cutting it. If he was going to look at spreadsheets and try to make heads or tails of them, he needed his brain to be working.

So he got up and shuffled back to the cabin area, taking over the same seat he'd had before. Patience was sitting on the same row, with an empty seat between them, flicking through images on her phone.

All Wilt saw was green and a child-shaped, dark blur, and he reclined the seat with a sigh. "Your son's soccer game?"

They both waited for Leo to correct them, but he didn't seem to have heard.

"Yes," the Asian agent finally responded. "Alex didn't score any points, so I have officially not yet missed his first goal."

Wilt pressed himself deeper into the seat, then turned on his shoulder a little bit so he was kind of facing her. "He have any more games this week?"

"Day after tomorrow." Her thumb was running idly up and down the side of the phone's bezel, like she was stroking his face. "Even if we left today I don't know that I'd land in time."

Missing his son's first soccer goal. That was something he'd have to look forward to, if he stayed in this life. "Keep in mind the time warp works in your favor on the way home."

"I'm familiar." There was dry amusement in her voice, this time, instead of the inflectionless tone she'd used before. "Flying from Taiwan is never fun. It's lunchtime when you take off, and it's only a little past lunchtime on the same day when you land. It's just endless afternoon."

That was a very pragmatic way to look at it. "Do you fly a lot with work?"

The agent cast a look around their tricked-out ride. Large computer bay, comfy passenger cabin, rear bathroom complete with shower facilities. Bozer was pretty sure if he really needed to, they had the capability of washing clothes somewhere on the jet. It was Matty's largest, and certainly most expensive aircraft.

"Hardly ever," she said, after a long pause. "I was actually hired to the company's think tank side. My degrees are pre-med and environmental science."

Bozer gave a quiet snort. "Way to buck the stereotype. Overachieve much?"

She gave him a sideways look. "In Taiwan, my family all practice Eastern medicine, and they wanted me to do the same. I won a scholarship as an exchange student to the US when I was fifteen, and my mentor helped me realize I wanted to do more than medical. Healing people, in Eastern medicine, is about being more in touch with the environment around you, and if the environment is sick, then the person is sick."

It wasn't far off from everything he'd learned in his yoga and feng shui classes.

"Explains the double major. But . . ." Bozer looked at her more closely. "When did you become a badass? Like, did you learn all that in Taiwan?"

She actually laughed, and fingered the small gold crucifix hanging just above the collar of her tac vest. "No. I met my husband, Ken, in college, and we both ended up at UCLA for grad school. We joined a krav maga club, as a kind of social outlet, and . . . I just liked it. Ken and I still go, three times a week."

Wilt nodded to himself. "Yeah, it's nice to have that normal thing to do. That's the part I kinda miss, cuttin' up with my film and prosthetics buddies, tellin' 'em all about my day. Can't really do that anymore."

She tipped her head in agreement. "I usually don't have to worry about that. By design." Her eyes fell back to the image of her son. "Carter recruited me to the tactical side with a promise that I wouldn't ever be deployed as anything but support for local agents. This is the second time . . ." She trailed off.

Bozer thought about that a second. "I didn't even know there _was_ an agent side until Murdoc showed up and tried to kill me and Mac. It was either join up or get arrested as a threat to national security, so . . ." He gave her a one-shoulder shrug. "Funny how this job kinda sucks you in."

Patience made a noncommittal noise.

The blanketed lump on the other side of the cabin shifted, just a little, and both of the agents turned to look. Matty's eyes remained closed, and she settled right back into slow, regular breathing.

"You know, I'm more than half convinced she's actually awake, and heard that whole thing," Bozer muttered. "She's just pushin' to see how long it takes before I crack."

"Your conversation with Director Bosch?"

"Yeah."

The diminutive Asian woman studied their boss another moment. "I don't think so." She looked back down at her phone as she received a text – presumably from her husband. "The mask's seal would have broken."

"From her screaming at me to shut up and disconnect the call?" Bozer suggested sourly.

"No. She would have smiled."

-M-

"What do you got?"

John Tunne looked up from his corner of the table. There'd been several brief skirmishes for territory before they'd settled into an uneasy truce, though every now and then another piece of paper or a device encroached for a period of time. Right now the most serious transgression was a boot, but unless he wanted it planted in his face Jack knew better than to try to bat it off the table.

John required space. A lot of it. The more sprawled he was, the faster his brain worked. The converse was true; the smaller the area you crammed the Green Beret into, the less thinking and the more reacting. Saito said it was because it cut off the big man's blood flow. Jack was pretty sure it was just straight up claustrophobia. And hell, since his own partner had acrophobia, he wasn't about to judge.

But he'd given John space, specifically for his brainpower. It was time to collect.

Tunne blew out a sigh. "I've got a list of four."

"Better than four dozen." Jack snapped his fingers impatiently, and John gave him a look and passed over the tablet.

"I'm favoring the NATO interpreter. He's a Turkish expat, moved to Germany three years before the coup. Still has ties back home, and worked the team based out of the Sea of Marmara last year. He was part of almost every interrogation NATO did of the colonel's surviving men, and he's been plugged into the proceedings ever since. He'd have intimate knowledge of the case, the courthouse, witness testimony lists, capabilities of the men, and bonus, had privileged access to them in the Hague. Could have smuggled in either weapons or intel."

Jack had to admit, he liked the guy for it too. Not particularly powerfully built. Classic nerd glasses, a little soft in the jowl. File said he was Ibrahim Dilaver.

"Not sure NATO's got the scoop on Matty's pad, though," Jack murmured, and John shrugged.

"DHS, DOD, and CIA all have it in some form or fashion. Hell, the IRS probably has it if you know her aliases. And I know our princess could get it from any one of 'em without anyone being the wiser."

Also true.

"Next up is the political SME Aydin's defense lined up."

His name, obnoxiously enough, was Jake Smith.

Jack glanced up at Tunne, and the man shrugged. "Checks out, according to Miz Morgan. US citizen, but his mom's side's Turkish and they moved back to Turkey in the late nineties. Been an outspoken critic of Erdogan since. His mom was arrested and held for six years without trial in an attempt to get the guy to shut up. She was recently released due to 'pressure from the opposition's political party.'" John mimed quotes. "It's unclear why the President's office gave ground."

"So you think the colonel's men got her released if he'd play ball?"

"Or as a reward for good behavior." John rubbed an eyebrow idly. "Tons of poly sci contacts in the US, including Capitol Hill. No criminal record, at least not one Jill could find."

If he was the hacker, he could have cleared his own record.

"Third dude's a lady. UN emissary for Turkey and Syria. She was also involved last year, obviously. High level analyst. She predicted the coup attempt. Privy to most of the details from the State Department and NATO, as well as some contacts in Turkish intelligence."

Jack flicked over to her image. A smiling, dark-haired woman in a headscarf appeared, and the profile identified her as Hatice Lahela Iris.

"Hatice? Jesus."

"Yeah. Every time I see her name I hear Hannibal Lecter. _Hello, Clarice_."

She had it all. Access to NATO, access to the UN, details of the coup and the players . . . wasn't likely the UN had Matty's home address, but again, that could be skirted. "Why isn't she your prime suspect?"

Tunne gestured at the tablet. "Because she already was. Turkish intelligence. UN internal investigation. State Department. Hell, we even took a crack at her. She came up clean, every time."

Sure enough, the background checks and investigations were there, including the dossier the Phoenix worked up. He glanced at it; looked like Liz had written it.

"And Matty saw this?"

The other agent shrugged. "My guess is yes. She took that op pretty personal."

Understatement.

Jack gave the investigations a more thorough look. "We went after her for the UN creds that helo used to access the base."

"Yep. They and NATO know all about Camp Bondsteel. She was never near any of it. Never accessed the files. She wasn't even in Turkey at the time. Boss, coworkers, and cameras had her in the office in Geneva, churning out reports just like normal. No extra hours, no weird home patterns, nothin'."

Jack paged through the file. "She works eighteen hour days?"

"Name an analyst that doesn't."

Good point. "Then why's she on your list?"

The Green Beret gave Jack a long look. "I don't know," he finally admitted. "I don't like her. Everybody's got _something_ in the closet, but that chick is lily white."

Unbidden, Dawn's sultry voice purred into Jack's ear. _Now that I think about it, there was something off about the paper trail . . . it was a little too clean, a little too perfect._

"Where is she now?"

"Right here in the Hague." John dropped his boot to the floor and stretched. "Hasn't been recalled yet, just in case we apprehend Aydin in the next couple days and trial resumes."

"And these other two?"

"Same situation." John stood, and what sounded like a string of muffled firecrackers went off as he straightened his spine. "Figure Wolff can help us out with surveillance."

Jack nodded agreement, and cast a quick look around the room. "Where'd your partner weasel off to?"

"Saito's playin' nice with Harlan's boys, in case we need to take a little heat together."

Translation – Saito was having a dick measuring contest with Harlan Wolff's tac team leads, which he would graciously lose, followed by teaching them all the 'knife trick'.

"Somebody's gotta be diplomatic, and that's not my thing."

Jack snorted. Loudly. John Tunne was many things; one of the primary ones was competitive. There would be no gracious, and no losing. "Yeah. Me neither." Dalton flicked the tablet to the fourth document. "Tell me about swarthy here."

"Oh, that guy. I think he might just be a run of the mill arms dealer-"

Up on the monitors, one of the maps flashed, and a blob of yellow misted over a dot labeled Getelo, on the German border.

It wasn't exactly the format he was used to, but Jack knew a radiation signature when he saw one. He dropped the tablet onto the desk and made a beeline for the front of the room. "That what I think it is?"

"It's the signature of the isotope tracker we're scanning for." Mouse couldn't mask her excitement – or her confusion. "There are . . . two. One is very faint."

As they watched, the yellow smear seemed to spread a little, and she tightened the view of the map.

The map rebuilt, this time showing the streets and buildings, and they watched an incredibly faint dot move into a squat little structure, while the stronger signal remained stationary just outside.

"What is that building?" Harlan had come up almost silently to Jack's side, and Dalton glanced over his shoulder as Mouse hurried to put a name to it.

"It's the . . . local polizei station." She hesitated, and a second window popped up, showing them infrared. The resolution wasn't fabulous, not good enough to pick out people, and Jack focused back on the first map.

Harlan was similarly frustrated. "Get them on the phone! _Now_!"

Another analyst immediately picked up a handset, still staring at a laptop – probably looking for the number – and Jack never took his eyes off that map.

Tiny German town, right on the border. Not all that far from where the two stolen helos ended up. Why the fuck would Aydin be there, walking into a damn police station of all places?

After less than a minute, the very faint blob joined back to the stronger one, and on infrared, they watched a quickly warming vehicle unhurriedly pull away.

Behind them, the male analyst finally seemed to make a connection, and Jack heard rapid-fire Dutch. He couldn't pick out all of it, but he didn't need to; as soon as Harlan turned to glare at him, the analyst shook his head.

"There is only one officer there, he didn't see them."

Strangely, the news didn't seem to affect Wolff one way or another. "Dispatch the nearest German and Dutch cops to intercept. Mila, do not lose that signal."

"Yessir." It was bright and clear on the map, and she zoomed out as the dot hopped on the local highway and started heading towards Nordhorn.

"What are you thinking?" John murmured at his elbow, and Jack kept an ear on the analyst, and an eye on the map. Mac had only grabbed enough isotope solution for one dose. Enough for one human adult to be trackable anywhere on the planet. And he was staring right at it as it drove down the 403.

But clearly Mac'd tagged more than one of 'em, if that's what that second faint signal was. And if he'd managed it to one of them -

"I think he got as many of the fuckers as he could, because he knew they'd split up," Jack muttered. "Harlan, there's gotta be more of 'em out there. And why the hell'd it take us so long to find them?"

The deputy director gave him a warning look, but it was Mouse who spoke up. "I told you before, Agent Dalton, we don't have the satellite coverage. I've been concentrating the scan to the Netherlands since we believed they were still in country. The sweep is by grid. I don't know how they managed to get to the German border –"

"How difficult would it be to mask this signature?"

Mouse answered her boss immediately. "If they knew about it, any kind of lead containment, such as x-ray technicians would use on a patient for routine scans. If we're looking for signals as faint as that second one, simply being indoors would be sufficient to hide it."

Well that could explain why they hadn't found it earlier. "Can you turn up the sensitivity on your satellites?"

Mouse balked. "Well . . . yes, but-"

Jack waved a hand at the map. "Then do it already!"

"It's not that simple, Agent Dalton." A little bit of Mouse's spine had come back to her tone. "In order to increase the sensitivity we have to significantly narrow the scope of the scan. It will take me hours to get a picture of the Netherlands, and there will be a great deal of noise in the images – false positives. It will be useless."

"Don't worry about that. Just do it and send the data to Phoenix. Let our analysts clean it up."

She made a noise of protest, then looked to her deputy director.

Harlan Wolff was still watching the signal traveling down the highway. "Can it be done without abandoning the current task?"

"No, sir."

Jack contained a frustrated growl with effort. "Can't we follow this guy on traffic cams?"

". . . when they are closer to Nordhorn, and with German cooperation, yes," Mouse confirmed grudgingly.

"Agent Dalton, we have already asked the Germans to assist us in tracking a suspect who has done nothing more than stop by a polizei station without being seen." Wolff turned on his heel, facing Jack squarely. "I have not involved INTERPOL to avoid breaking the cover of your agent, but the type of assistance you're asking for must be based in fact. If these men are indeed working for Aydin, we must stop them legally in order to hold them."

"Bein' linked to breakin' a terrorist out of prison isn't enough evidence for you-"

Wolff held up a hand. "And if they were not at the courthouse? Without an image to put them at the scene, what evidence would we have? A radioactive tracker that, for all we know, they may have come into contact with entirely on accident?"

Jack glared at him. "Come _on_ , dude, you're not seriously gonna stand there and tell me we're lettin'em go on a technicality -"

"Some of Agent MacGyver's personal effects have already been found. Why do you believe the isotope solution was effectively deployed?" Harlan waved his hand at the map. "Aydin's men have anticipated us at every turn. They may well have anticipated this. The men we're following could simply be Dutch citizens who encountered it as part of another diversion."

" . . . or they could be Agent MacGyver himself," Mouse murmured. "Director –"

Up on the screens, a window showed what looked very much like an office. The timestamp was a few minutes ago. The camera angle wasn't great, it was clearly a security cam up in the corner of some room, and sure enough, a door opened and a tall, slender figure in a ballcap came into view. He didn't make any sudden movements, he just calmly walked into the office and helped himself to a radio, sitting in a charging station with two others. He hesitated, then moved to one of the desks, and pulled open a drawer. As he bent to inspect the contents, blond hair peeking out the back of the cap became visible.

He was in khaki tac pants and an olive drab shirt, and Jack would have sworn it was Mac.

And he would have been wrong.

Because the Mac on the screen pulled a sidearm in a holster out of the desk and plopped it indifferently – but quietly – onto an unsteady stack of papers before grabbing something small out of the drawer. He closed the drawer most of the way, then calmly walked out of the station, never once glancing up at the camera or exposing his face.

She'd pulled up a second camera, one in a parking lot, and they watched the doppel-Mac slide into the passenger seat of a four door sedan. The driver was just a shadow behind the windshield, and then the vehicle pulled out of the parking lot. Mouse paused the image to get tags.

"That wasn't Mac." Jack was honestly surprised the voice wasn't his; it was John's. The agent had folded his beefy arms across his chest, and his expression was flat. "Kid'd never handle a firearm that carelessly."

And Jack knew instantly that little detail would never convince someone like Harlan Wolff. "He wasn't wearing gloves. Have the local LEO get a print and send it over. And at least now we can justify the traffic stop for petty theft."

Then he rounded back on Wolff. "They are going through a damn lot of effort to keep our eyes on that border. Maybe they know about the tracker, maybe not, but if not, there's no way they'd anticipate us findin' this as fast as we did." He jabbed a finger at the map. "They're either leadin' us on a wild goose chase while Aydin slips away, or they're movin' on to the next task in keepin' us occupied. Get me that scan, and I promise you if there are any more of 'em out there, Phoenix will find 'em."

Right after he talked to Jill and got some decent damn satellites.

The Dutch deputy director studied the map again, his expression unreadable. Then he turned and gave Mouse a sharp nod.

-M-

She plucked out her earbuds as soon as she saw who had just walked into the lab, and Joshua Carter gave the other analyst in the room, Liz, a polite nod before he approached. "Morgan, you done with that evidence yet?"

"Mostly," she replied, loudly enough to carry across the room, and Jill waited for Carter to come around behind her chair before she toggled off the screens where she was legitimately analyzing the evidence from Webber's home, and switched to the evidence that had been coming in from overseas. Liz had on her noise cancelling headphones, and didn't even glance their way.

She was having a hard time with Matty's death. Apparently she'd really latched on since the op the year before. Learning that the two dead had been former Turkish special forces had hit her particularly hard.

The fact that the attack on Matty was linked to Colonel Aydin's trial was almost out of the bag. From what little the new interim director was sharing, most of the other intelligence agencies had already come to that conclusion. Between the attack on Matty and the bomb that had managed to get into Turkish Parliament the week before, however, it didn't diminish the seriousness of the breach.

Someone had gotten hold of Matty's address somehow. The interim director was being tight-lipped, but that was kinda how the DoD rolled. Since they hadn't relaxed their own lock-down procedures, she was fairly sure they hadn't had any more luck figuring that out than she had.

However, she _had_ made some progress on Aydin's current whereabouts, and she grabbed the most interesting first.

"One of my sorority sisters works for ENSREG – the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group – and they routinely screen for any movement of radioactive waste across western Europe," Jill started. "I convinced her to request a scan – I didn't give her our parameters, just a range - and we got it back about an hour ago." It was a fascinating heatmap of nearly the whole of Europe and Russia, in a veritable rainbow of colors, and she waited patiently for the acting Head of Security to ask the usual question; why was there so much radiation in Europe?

" . . . you were in a sorority?"

She turned her head slightly to catch him in her peripheral vision. "Alpha Sigma Kappa – it's WiTS. How is that the most important question you have?"

The man shrugged, and a brief, appealing whiff of something vaguely spicy puffed into her space. It smelled great, but it also reminded her – Carter was not Webber. He was security. Ex-military.

She should treat him like Jack.

"So don't worry about all the colors. We only care about these."

She hit a few keys, and a great deal of the shading disappeared. Unfortunately, there were at least four dozen pockets of nearly transparent mustard yellow remaining.

She was right; this information meant something to him, and he leaned in closer, carefully studying the screen. "How much isotope did Mac take?"

That was a much more pertinent question. And she had an answer. "Not enough to tag all these places. Not unless he put some on his palm and went around high-fiving all the colonel's men."

Carter snorted. "Not typically how it's applied."

"Well, this is MacGyver . . ." She touched the screen to center the map on the Netherlands. "Agent Dalton thinks Aydin is still inside the border of the Netherlands. If he's right, there are . . . twenty-nine places where something at least somewhat like the signature we're looking for is present."

It was a dizzying array of options, all over the map. The brightest section, without question, was between Getelo and Nordhorn. "That's the original signal the Dutch picked up, two men in a Beamer earlier this morning. This isn't getting updated in real time, but we should expect to hear something from Jack soon."

"More of Aydin's boys?"

Jill winced, and pulled up the video. "Not exactly."

Carter was silent as he watched someone that looked a hell of a lot like Angus MacGyver crossing a small parking lot. He was in khaki pants, a faded green tee, and a baseball cap, and his face wasn't exposed in the footage. Then she switched the footage to the small motel's manager's office, where someone who was not MacGyver, but dressed similarly, was tossing something into a dumpster. "They found Mac's suit and shoes in there. The local police have been slow to get fingerprints turned around in the rooms, but it looks like they spent the night."

Then she moved on to the police station footage, and let it play as well. "Jack sent these to me to see if we could get a positive ID, but . . . that angle, and the resolution, it's just impossible."

Carter made a sound to the negative. "That's not Mac. He'd never toss a potentially loaded firearm onto a pile of junk like that."

Jill felt herself smile. "That's what Jack said. Unfortunately, that's not admissible in court. There's a lot of evidence that MacGyver is helping them. Or at least, not trying very hard to let us know where he is."

A firm hand came down on her shoulder. "Trust me, Morgan. He's trying all right. We just gotta listen."

Which was easier said than done. "That's the problem. There are too many places to check." She gestured at the map. "There are schools, small towns, this one's in the middle of a – a field –"

"And you can't get it any clearer than this?"

She shook her head. "Remember how the map looked in the beginning?" She toggled the filters off for effect. "Most of that is noise - remnants of the Chernobyl disaster. The fallout settled all over Europe - in Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Germany, Finland, Sweden – and of course the Netherlands. The isotope range we use for this type of tagging isn't exactly common, but as the fallout combined with other pollutants and chemicals, formed compounds, was distributed – and that's not taking into account all the radioactive waste that's been dumped in contaminated areas just to hide it from ENSREG and the European Commission . . ." She took a deep breath. "Jack wants me to find these guys, but I just don't know how I'm going to do that with this."

"What do you need?"

". . . a magic wand?" she suggested, half under her breath. "ENSREG satellites are actually ours – it's not a lack of equipment. The tracker is designed to be given to a single target as a single dose. That's the only way it's able to cut through all the other environmental radiation out there. If Mac did spread it out, the more people he spread it to, the weaker the signal. There's no way to . . . to boost it, there's no other method of filtering for it."

The agent considered that. "Well, at least you can see which ones move, right? Get an image now, and every hour. Whoever's moving or disappeared is probably a good place to start."

"And I thought about that too," Jill admitted. "But these are so weak . . . just stepping into a building would be enough to mask it. And there's no guarantee that they're not moving simply because someone's picked up something that was contaminated twenty years ago. It's still a lot of noise."

"You know what to do with noise, Morgan. You whittle it down frequency by frequency until you get what you want."

She paused. That was true. ". . . that's right. How do you . . .?"

"I DJ every weekend at a club near the beach." He leaned off her chair, still looking at the monitors. "Call me up, I'll play for your sorority sometime."

She was just about to open her mouth and call BS when her phone buzzed, and a picture of Taz the Tasmanian Devil popped up. She answered it immediately and put it on speaker, casting a quick glance at Liz.

Still with her back to them, still wearing her noise cancelling headphones.

"You got anything for me, M&M?"

"Nothing you want to hear," she replied, quite sure that Carter had figured out who they were talking to. "There's no angle on any of that video footage you sent me."

"Nah, that's fine." Jack sounded disgusted, but not terribly disappointed. "Local LEO finally got the prints from the station back to us. Matches a few lifted from the last little show they put on for us."

Well, at least _that_ was admissible in court. "I'm . . . working through some satellite data now. But, Jack-"

"Listen up, Specs. I got your evil twin here tellin' me it can't be done. I need you to show her up."

"Well," she started, "then _I_ need –"

"Hold up." It was distracted. The phone shifted, with Jack's attention elsewhere, and Jill gave the device an exasperated look. Just like Jack to give her an impossible task and then just walk away –

The ceiling swung by nauseatingly as he carried the phone towards the front of the room. "They make contact?" She knew instantly from the tone that Agent Dalton wasn't talking to her. So did Carter; he hooked a nearby stool with his foot and dragged it over, and she put her phone between them, still too worried about Liz overhearing to turn it up any louder.

There was another voice, low, speaking English, and then Jack adjusted his phone, and she caught the top quarter of what looked like Agent Tunne's head.

"Gestapo just caught up with our Mac wannabe. Hang tight, might have something else for ya in a second."

Jill closed her eyes. "The Gestapo were German, Jack, not Dutch –"

"They're _in_ Germany," Carter replied "He's accidentally right."

She decided that silence was the better part of valor. There was no need to explain the Nazi party hadn't been the ruling party in Germany for quite some time, or that the Gestapo were dissolved in 1945. "This is what it's like to be Riley," she murmured to herself.

Carter gave her an inquiring look, but she shook her head. "I didn't find anything there either," she told him softly. "Nothing in the background of the video, and the metadata collected wasn't enough to get an IMEI number. Not to mention, if they had any sense at all they used a burner, and they ditched it when they planted MacGyver's phone at that cabin."

The agent beside her frowned, but before he could say anything else she heard a quiet cry from the other end of the phone. It was feminine, and what Jill could see of Jack's face was stony. Even as she watched, a few muscles tensed under the skin of his jaw.

Carter broke the sudden silence. "Dalton?"

The image shifted, coming closer to Jack's mouth. "Stand by."

Neither of them said another word.

They couldn't hear much of the background, until a few things she thought might have just been pops from the international call happened in rapid succession, and she realized they were gunshots. Jack hadn't dropped the phone, and they couldn't see much of his face from the forward facing camera, so Jill grabbed her keyboard. She transferred the call in session from her phone to her terminal, then called up one of Riley's little toys and swapped the video to the camera on the back of Jack's phone.

He wasn't holding it straight on to the monitors, but she could make out that there _were_ monitors, and several videos running, from different angles. She and Carter both tilted their heads, and then Jill jumped when she realized what they were watching.

One of the streams was moving, a camera on someone's vest, but it suddenly whited out, and then the image slowly auto-focused to a blue sky and white fluffy clouds. There was something dark and fuzzy on the lens.

Carter cleared his throat. "You should step away for a second."

Jill was in full agreement, and stood up quickly, pushing her wheeled stool out behind her. Another video stream whited out, and she shifted her attention to the nearby microscope. She'd long since analyzed the fibers and other macro evidence from the attack on Matty's mansion, but she'd much rather look at dried blood on a carpet fiber than out of focus fresh on the bodycam of a law enforcement agent.

She queued up the last slide she'd examined, and stared at her notepad, trying to make sense of the small, neat letters she'd written not two hours ago.

This is what they did. Just because she wasn't usually watching it live didn't mean she didn't look at the results every day. This is what had happened at Matty's house, not forty-eight hours ago. This is what would happen when they found Mac and Riley, and Jack went in to get them out.

And maybe that was what was happening right now. Maybe it really _was_ Mac with that soldier. Maybe the fight would be over soon –

Behind her, she heard Jack's muffled voice. "I'm only countin' one."

Apparently he wasn't talking to Carter, because the other man didn't respond, and Jill noticed she hadn't accurately marked her notes to the current project. She fixed the error, glad for something to do. She'd made it onto the third label before she heard Carter's quiet voice.

"Anybody hit him?"

The answer was a long time coming. "Doesn't look like it." Then Jack swore. "It was definitely one of Aydin's. We'll deal with him, but we just lost the element of surprise. You find me the rest of these assholes, and I mean right now."

Then Jill heard the quiet tone of her phone disconnecting.

-M-

It was actually the absence of noise that finally pulled her from sleep, and Matilda Webber lay quite still, just listening.

Hiss of air being pumped around the cabin. Quiet hum of an aircraft. Voices, fairly distant and not terribly urgent.

No dinging. No low rumble of a vibration. No chime of a call.

Her phone must be dead.

Matty indulged in another delicious moment of tranquility, taking a slightly deeper breath, and she took a second to wonder why she wasn't freezing her ass off, since she'd apparently fallen asleep under one of the plane's air conditioning jets. Blanket, she decided, and confirmed by bringing up her right hand to rub her eyes.

Long before she got to her eyes, she encountered something plastic that seemed to hit her in the face, and Matty snapped fully awake.

The thing – a breathing mask? – was easy to remove, and her back shrieked at her for flinching. Matty bit back a growl as memory flooded back, and forced herself into a sitting position. The fleece blanket slipped with a whisper to the floor of the cabin, and then Patience's face swept into view.

"Slowly, director –"

She didn't need to be told twice. ". . . what time is it?"

". . . time for you to be in such a chipper mood you don't murder us?" Bozer suggested timidly, which was pretty much exactly the answer she'd been expecting.

Way the hell longer than the four hours she'd set aside. Matty eased herself to the edge of the couch, trying to rub her dry eyes without smearing industrial grade mascara all over herself. The last thing she needed to look like on a video call was a raccoon.

"I gave you an order."

"So did I," the medic's cool voice replied. "How do you feel?"

"Pissed off and disrespected," Matty snapped, but honestly, she should have set her own damn alarm. Probably would have slept through it, too. "What damage has Yosemite Sam caused in the meantime?"

This time it was Bozer who responded. "Jack's airborne with a tac team to intercept a couple of Aydin's men. We finally picked up Mac's isotope tracker, but it looks like he kinda spread the love, so we're still workin' on getting a fixed location for the colonel."

Matty blinked her eyes open fully this time, and glared at Patience as the medic held up a small penlight. However, she followed it obediently until her eyes fell on Bozer, cringing in her peripheral vision, and she abandoned the light to stare at Wilt.

He gave her a wide, cheerfully fake smile. "I'm, uh, gonna have to touch you up here in a minute. The deputy director wanted to speak with you. Also, uh, Director Bosch, but I'm not actually sure you wanna speak to _her_ , so . . . you might wanna push that down the list until she cools off a li'l."

Matty rolled her eyes, then regretted it, and closed them. "Agent Keung, what did you give me?"

"Tylenol and a half-dose of hydrocodone. It's already out of your system."

The pain in her back told her that much. "Can we _please_ come to an understanding about this?"

"I'd like that," the medic agreed drily. "Your blood pressure's _still_ low and you have a fever. You cannot keep this up, director, or you will crash." Matty heard something rub against fabric. "You were the one to call a rest period. All I did was facilitate actual _resting_ during that period. And wonder of wonders, your vitals have improved."

Matty carefully opened her eyes, glad to find the cabin had stopped spinning. "Agent Keung, this is not a clinic. We're not in LA. This is an active op. I _need_ you to keep me capable of responding to information and threats quickly and effectively."

"Then it sounds like we agree." She cranked off the oxygen tank for emphasis. "My job is to keep you alive, director. You are _injured_. These are not minor wounds. Treat them accordingly."

They could go around and around all night – day? – on that, and Matty frowned and then reached up to touch her left ear. She'd been sleeping on it, and had completely forgotten about the acupuncture needles. Remarkably, they were still there.

"Have they shifted?" The typical deference was back as if the disagreement had never happened.

"One's a little sore," she admitted, then scowled when the medic simply reached up and tilted her head. There was a brief pinch, and the pain was immediately gone.

"Better," she volunteered, before Patience could even ask. "No more mickeys, or I will put you on the next plane to the States. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly." The other woman leaned back a little, giving her a once over. "Just remember; if you pass out, you're going to the closest ER."

It was the exact same threat the medic had issued earlier, when she'd woken up on the floor of her own living room.

Keung didn't wait for her to agree to the term, either; she simply picked up the oxygen tank and carried it towards the front of the plane. Bozer re-appeared with a makeup compact in his hand, and Matty heaved a little sigh.

There was no denying that she _did_ feel better. Almost human again.

Wilt was very gentle as he touched up her makeup, and he did a relatively good job of not wincing too much on her behalf when he knew he was touching places her face was bruised. Thankfully, she didn't seem to have done much damage to the mascara because he didn't come at her with the wand.

"What is this stuff?"

"This?" He held up the compact so she could see. "Make Up For Ever. It's HD quality. But I sealed your face with a little custom PAX earlier, to give me a more consistent base. That's why this stuff is sticking so well. Kinda like barrier cream for a mime or a clown."

She arched an eyebrow at him – the one he was penciling. "You think I look like a clown, Bozer?"

He froze stock still. "Uh . . . n-no, Matty, I –"

"I'm kidding. What haven't you told me?"

He took a relieved breath, and then put a brush to her eyelids. "That was most of the highlights. Mac still hasn't made contact, but they got a guy dressed up just like 'im running around the German border plantin' evidence. The Dutch surveillance net also scooped up a phone call, from one of the Turks to Mac. A video call." The brush hesitated a little on her eyelid. "So we know Riley's alive, at least the night before the courthouse."

"And we have nothing on her since?"

"No." Wilt's voice was tight. "Nothin' in the background of the call, and she was pretty out of it. Looks like they're keepin' her drugged."

Which is exactly what she would have done in Aydin's place. MacGyver had turned out to be far more resourceful than they'd anticipated. They wouldn't want to make that same mistake with Riley Davis. Not to mention Riley hadn't undergone nearly the level of training either Mac or Jack had when it came to resisting interrogation. She'd just had the basic course, never been through anything remotely like SERE. She was a field analyst.

It would be positively foolish to think they hadn't gotten some information out of her by now.

Which explained why Riley hadn't been able to make contact, either.

Patience reappeared, pushing a cup into her hand, and Matty waited until Wilt backed off to inspect it. It looked like water. She turned the same eyebrow on the medic.

"It's electrolyte solution. You can drink the liter, or I can attach an IV."

The IV was a definite negative – way too visible on video conferences – and Matty glared at her and took a sip. It seemed good enough for Patience, who turned back to her medical kit without another comment. Matty took another sip – it actually didn't taste too bad – and pushed herself off the couch, hunting for her discarded pumps with her toes.

Shoes located, she slipped them on and continued to the console, where her phone was sitting – charging, but silenced – and she sighed, painfully crawled into the seat, and got back to work.

Her first call was Jill. The analyst looked actually happy to see her.

"Director." The relief on her face slowly faded. "I wish I had good news for you."

"I'll take any news at this point."

Jill gave her a quick nod. "We finally got a hit on the isotope tracking signature. Unfortunately, it's not as strong as we'd expect to see it." Her image disappeared, replaced by a map of Europe. "We think Mac tagged several people, but we're not sure." A small yellow square centered over the Netherlands' border with Germany, on the eastern side. "The strongest signal was here, but we lost it after it entered Nordhorn."

"What do you mean, you lost it?"

Jill didn't even hesitate, launching directly into geekspeak. "Environmental radiation in large, populous areas is sufficient to block out the signal. Deputy Director Wolff dispatched Agent Dalton and a team of his own men to the area with the expectation we'll be able to pick up the signal again once they leave the city proper. If not, we'll know we have them contained."

Which was progress, but not enough, and too slow. "What about the colonel?"

"We don't think he's with them." Jill hesitated a little. "There are other signatures, all over the Netherlands, but I've narrowed the list down to seven that I'm monitoring."

The map zoomed out slightly, showing her the north end of the English Channel and the entirely of the Netherlands. A few squares highlighted areas of interest. Matty scanned the map with a practiced eye.

Aydin, if he was actually still in the Netherlands, ,would be there for only two reasons. One, there was something else he needed to acquire that was already in the country, like resources, or another ally. The other was to wait until the search expanded beyond the borders, and then to sneak along behind the perimeter until he found the opportunity to slip beyond it. Without knowing where he was heading, it was difficult to predict those opportunities.

"Do we know what he's after?"

Wilt cleared his throat. "I've been trying to follow the money. A lot of smaller groups have actually been fundraising to try to get a defense mounted for the colonel – mostly students or folks with ties to progressive Turkish youth movements. None of 'em are big enough to really help, but together they've done pretty well. Not Kickstarter good, but not bad." He showed her a tablet, but it was too detail-heavy to extract anything meaningful at a glance.

"Some expats in the Netherlands have the coin to support him; been running those down and tryin' to cross-check 'em against Jill's list of potential radiation markers."

Four of the squares on the display turned orange, and Matty assessed each one. All within the border, all with easy access to transportation. "Have you sent this to Wolff?"

"Yes ma'am." It was Jill who answered. "He's sent out teams to each location."

"Let's hope they have better luck than the guys in Nordhorn," Bozer added quietly.

Matty gave him a sharp look, and Wilt's expression became pained. "Six politie confronted the last guys, and five of 'em didn't make it."

Matty digested that as she studied the map. Harlan had lost men, which upped the ante for him significantly. Now he was going to have to justify his actions to his superiors, and he was going to need cold, hard facts to continue the operation without interference. She needed to get him on the horn ASAP.

"Did we get a positive ID on those men?"

"No ma'am. In fact, we could only confirm one of them was there. Doesn't look like he was even hit."

So the guy was outnumbered six to one and escaped. It definitely sounded like the _Bordo Bereliler_.

"What kind of help are we getting from Turkish intelligence?"

Bozer snorted. "Not much, according to the deputy director. His head analyst thinks they know more than they're sharing."

That was pretty much a given. They wanted Aydin caught just as much as she did, but they weren't going to do anything that involved risk. As far as they were concerned, this fuck-up was all their allies' fault.

And they weren't wrong. Matty scrunched up her face for a moment, then let it settle into its default configuration. Polite but focused was probably the right approach. "Jill, let me know the _second_ any of the signals you're watching throw up a red flag. Bozer will keep following the money. I'll touch base with Harlan and see what his teams have found."

She hung up and centered herself to the console, dialing up the deputy director. As she waited for the call to connect, she glanced at Bozer, who was still hovering to her right.

"And would you mind explaining _why_ it is I don't want to speak with Director Bosch right now?"

-M-

This is not the cliffhanger I promised you. I didn't even mange to GET to the cliffhanger I promised you. Is anyone surprised? [looks around] Yeah, imagine me trying to squeeze too much into a chapter. Crazy, right?

Please note this chapter is happening simultaneously to the last one. So, in summary - Mac's isotope tracker worked! Sort of. (And you've figured out by now how he did it, right?) Bozer got to play Matty and mouth off to the State Department. Jack and his boys are getting closer to IDing Aydin's hacker, Liris, as well as finally getting a lead on where some of the colonel's men are. But remember, all this is happening as Mac's having dinner with the colonel – and his and Riley's time is quickly running out.

I've written more than half of the next chapter thinking I could squeeze it into this one, but it was getting just too crazy long. Rest assured, you'll have your cliffhanger soon.


	10. Chapter 10

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

There is a reference to an experience Mac had in Venezuela – that is from my little collection of Turkey Day stories, titled Turkey Day: All the Trimmings. The one being referenced here is the one-shot called Citrus Punch. You don't have to read it, but it will help give context to Mac's thoughts.

 **Content Warning** : Mild tearjerk warning, seriously heavy content warning. For some of you, this chapter will be difficult to read. There will be difficult chapters after this one. But if you stick with me, I _promise_ you it'll be worth it.

-M-

 **PRESENT TIME**

She woke up bit by bit. There were two people that she absolutely had to find – one of them was named Charlie. His friend was a soldier, and they were out in the desert. They thought she was a bad guy; no matter how hard she searched for them, they always hid from her.

Eventually she realized the pain in her throat, the dryness, was actually dryness. Riley swallowed, trying to make the pain go away so she could focus on rescuing Charlie, but it just brought more discomfort to her attention.

Her right arm hurt.

The thrumming in her ear eventually became rhythmic, and her scalp stung. The sand faded, and she realized that she was dreaming.

Waking up was not easy.

She ranted. She screamed. Eventually Riley collapsed in the sand. It felt somehow distant, this time, and she dug her fists into it, shoving through it until the feeling of heat and crunchiness finally faded, and she realized the thing she was squashing in her hands wasn't sand at all.

It was soft.

It still seemed like ages until she could pry her dry eyes open, and burnt sand met her gaze, as far as she could see. Riley moaned in her throat, surprised at how much it ached, and something that had been wrapped around her suddenly slithered away.

She eventually realized that she was somewhat upright, and there was a crick in her neck. She picked up her head. The thrumming sound stopped, and she became aware of another sound. Deeper. Familiar.

"-ley? You with me?"

She blinked again, still feeling far too numb for comfort, and turned her head towards the voice. She hit something with her forehead, and realized her skull was just too heavy to manipulate. Despite the crick, she let her head drop back to its original position, and decided to go back to sleep.

Some unknown amount of time later, she realized she had actually been awake, earlier, and with that came the realization that she was awake again.

Riley took a deep breath, swallowing around a dry throat, and she felt something move up and down her back. She was on her right hip, leaning up against something warm, and the material beneath her started to shift.

"Riley?"

"Mmm," she said, noncommittally.

Whatever was moving on her back started moving a little faster. "You awake?"

She'd said as much, hadn't she?

Irritation finally made her open her eyes, and the godforsaken beige appeared. Riley groaned and closed them again. She'd been sure it was gone; she'd been wandering in a desert, looking for someone named . . . uh . . .

That wasn't sand.

The pain helped chase away the rest of the cobwebs, and Riley opened her eyes again, more determinedly this time. Something slipped down her arm to fall off at her elbow, and she groggily pushed herself into a sitting position.

She was pushing against Mac's chest.

Her right arm hurt. A lot.

MacGyver's face came into view, frowning with concern, and Riley blinked owlishly at him, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. Was she . . . in bed with him?

But he was sitting up. She was in his lap; she'd been laying against his chest sleeping.

His concern gave way to a tight smile. "Hey."

"Mmnm," she grunted again, still confused. Everything felt sluggish.

"Easy-" And then his arms were around her again – again? – and Riley was grateful as they stopped her from toppling backwards. She felt herself gently pulled back into the same position as before, and despite the ache in her right shoulder, she drifted off to sleep.

The next time she woke, she was actually awake.

She was aware that she was lying on someone's chest. That the sound she was listening to was a heartbeat, slow and steady. That someone else's lungs were expanding and contracting beneath her cheek. That an arm was around her.

Riley swallowed again, but her throat wasn't as painful as she remembered, and she gathered herself to sit up. The arm around her released her immediately.

"Ri?"

"Sunnuva _bitch_ ," she croaked, stretching her right wrist painfully. The shoulder hurt, too, and her scalp stung as she pulled herself slowly into a sitting position.

She was still in Mac's lap, and she straightened gingerly, wincing a little at a pain in her right hip. They were back in the – room? cell? – and Mac had pulled them into the corner furthest from the door. His body tensed beneath her, but he didn't try to stop her as she sat up. She rolled her right shoulder in irritation.

Damn, her arm hurt. She must have slept on it funny.

Riley turned her head a little, blinking grumpily at Mac. He looked worried.

"You with me?"

"Fuckers drugged me," she said by way of explanation, bringing up her left hand to rub at her face. Her jaw hurt a little, too, like she'd held it open too wide trying to eat a giant jawbreaker. "What happened?"

Mac's expression was unreadable. "What do you remember?"

That was the million dollar question. She swallowed some moisture back into her throat, hoping it would help her raspy voice. "Looking for some asshole in a desert," she muttered. "Before that, your two buddies coming in and –" She winced again, pulling up her right arm, but the sleeve of the dress was too tight to roll up. She was sure there was a bruise from the injection. "They got me with something."

She vaguely remembered being forced back into the niqab, and being dragged by her upper arms from the cell, but –

Not a whole hell of a lot after that.

Riley frowned. "Uh, I think I remember the hallway . . . stairs?"

Mac's eyebrows bunched for a moment. "Anything else?"

She shook her head, rubbing her eyes again. Definitely twisted her right arm. "No. What happened?" Then she remembered, and stiffened a little bit. "Why are you back here? How long was I . . .?"

"Not long," he said quickly. "You've been out three, maybe four hours."

Riley groaned and scooted off his lap, so that she was leaning back against the wall to his left. As soon as she moved, he pulled away a little, so that his legs weren't in her way. She saw he was still wearing the clothes they'd made him change into earlier. There was blood spotted down the tee shirt, and a little more under his left jaw, but not very much. It had dried long ago.

Other than that, he looked . . . reasonably okay. But the way he was holding himself, the tension -

"Are you okay? Why're you here?" It sounded ungrateful, which wasn't her intention at all. "I mean, I'm not complaining, but –"

The eyebrow bunching gave way to a mildly annoyed look. "Not sure myself," he answered, his voice soft. "I'm good. How do _you_ feel?"

Riley shrugged, then winced, and rolled her right shoulder in a circle. "Sore," she admitted. "What the hell _happened_?"

His eyes were glued to her shoulder, and he didn't answer her until she stopped moving it. ". . . I don't know."

Which was _not_ what she wanted to hear. "They drugged you too?"

Mac shook his head a little. "No, not exactly," he muttered, and glanced towards the door. She followed his gaze to a large, semi-round stain on the floor that was not beige.

It was a deep, dark brown. Almost black.

Riley looked back at him, a little more alert, and finally made out the cut, right where his hair met his left temple. It looked raw and ugly, and it was clearly swollen, but he'd obviously taken a crack at cleaning himself up. He'd just missed that smear under his jaw.

Mac caught her studying him, and he frowned a little. "I had a chat with the colonel. He offered me a job."

"Awesome." Riley rotated her right shoulder again. "I take it you didn't accept?"

The blond snorted. "Told him I was already employed."

Truth. ". . . speaking of, I kinda wish our employer would make an appearance." Clearly things had happened between the two goons drugging her and waking up back here, and Mac was just as clearly in full-blown guilt mode about it. They might have just roughed her up to mess with him, but that was breaking the deal he'd negotiated. Either they were using her to punish him – maybe for turning down the recruitment attempt - or they'd tried to get out of her what they couldn't get out of him. Neither option was particularly good. Clearly their usefulness to the colonel was coming to an end.

Now would be a splendid time for Phoenix to swoop in and save the day.

MacGyver gave a slight nod. " . . . yeah, me too." Something in his tone was off. "How's the arm?"

"Not broken," she assured him, continuing to roll it. "Just hurts."

He nodded, but she didn't miss the way he was watching her every move.

He knew it wasn't broken. He'd probably checked her for injuries the second they dropped her back off. Riley took another deep breath, relieved that at least her ribs didn't hurt, and then pushed herself shakily to her feet. He half-rose, as if to help her, and she waved him down.

"I'm fine. Just stiff." She dredged up a smirk. "You're not the softest pillow, you know."

Rather than play along, he grimaced a little. "I'm sorry. But it was me or the floor-"

"Not a whole lot of difference there, Mac," she quipped, and her unease grew when he didn't say anything else. She headed into the bathroom.

"Want any water?"

"No, thanks," he called back, softly, and she paused in front of the sink, staring at the cup. He hadn't said anything, yet, but she could tell he was working his way up to it. They needed to get out. Now. He was just trying to figure out how together she was.

She still felt a little shaky on her feet – probably her blood sugar had tanked – and Riley decided a safety pee was in order. She hiked up the dress, and then groped around blindly for a second before she realized why she was having a hard time finding the waistband of the undershorts.

She wasn't wearing them.

Riley blinked, then glanced down at herself. Even in the dim, she could make out a dark bruise on the top of her bare right thigh, in a thin line from the inside of it all the way to her right hip. Haltingly, she pressed down on it, hardly registering the stinging or soreness. Her right hip, on the other hand, still ached, and she turned out the joint, feeling the strain of pulled muscles.

There was another set of bruises, a medium-sized one with a couple smaller, fingerprint sized marks, on the inside of her left thigh, closer to her knee. It barely hurt at all.

Riley yanked the dress off, turning towards the light, almost afraid to look. She was still wearing the sports tank, but it was twisted to the side. There was a bruise on her right shoulder, not as dark as the ones on her legs, and she put her hand on it shakily. Her palm covered it perfectly.

Right over the scar where the Turk had stabbed her.

She pulled the sore joint forward, turning so the light coming from the main room shone on the back of it, and though she couldn't see any marks, when she squeezed her own shoulder, she felt them. Knots where someone's fingers had dug into her skin.

She didn't remember it. Not any of it.

Riley pulled her hand away from the marks, pressing it against her chest to keep it from shaking. To keep from making a sound. Her throat still ached, she thought it was dry, but maybe it was from -

And her sore jaw. Her hand crept up her throat, finding it tender, it was the left side of her jaw that hurt when she pressed her thumb into the side of it. And her scalp, on the back of her head, when she ran her trembling fingertips up under her hair, like someone had grabbed a handful of it, and pulled.

But . . . but why? Why, when she couldn't remember? What was the point if she wouldn't remember?

Riley started to shiver, and she wrapped her arms around her chest and held her breath, blinking hard.

What was the point?

To scare her. To make her feel – just like this. To not know what happened, or how, how many –

Riley looked at the ceiling, willing the tears to stay in her eyes, and hugged herself tightly. She made sure that every breath she took was quiet, carefully controlled. It took her a few minutes, but eventually she risked letting go of herself, and then she bent down to the floor, favoring her right hip, and hesitantly picked up the dress.

She'd pulled it off over her head, but somehow it was right side in. Riley shakily shrugged it back on, being careful of her right shoulder. The seam there was torn, more than halfway to the end of her shoulder blade, and Riley fingered the threads there for a moment.

Then she fisted her shaking hand.

She'd been in there, quiet, for too long. And Mac hadn't called for her. Hadn't checked on her.

Riley forced herself to take a deep breath, then she walked stiffly out of the bathroom. He was looking up, watching for her, and the second she saw his eyes, she knew that he knew.

Of course he did.

He was on his feet and halfway to her in a flash, but he held himself back, gave her space. ". . . Riley . . ."

She shook her head, sharply. "What happened."

His mouth was open, she watched him struggle to find the words. He didn't find them fast enough.

"What. _Happened._ "

" . . . I don't know." The same non-answer. The same soft, guilt-ridden voice.

Riley felt her lips thin, and she shook her head, slowly at first, then like she meant it. "Don't give me that, Mac. Not now. You know _something_."

"Riley, I don't, really I don't." He looked like he wanted to reach for her, and she realized she'd grabbed her right arm with her left, closing herself off to him. She couldn't bring herself to move.

"So I was . . . I was gone when you were brought back here?"

He could barely maintain eye contact. "I . . . they were taking you up the stairs after I saw the colonel. You were drugged, and wearing the niqab. I tried to . . ." He broke off, then, his eyes skittering away from hers, and he licked his lips. "I should have tried harder," he finished, his voice barely above a whisper.

The stairs. So that was real. "They had a hood on you. How did you know it was me?" She hated how accusatory it sounded, but she didn't apologize. Had he heard something? Had she been talking?

He shook his head. "They didn't put it back on. Hakan . . . he wanted me to know." Mac dragged his eyes back up to hers, and she could see he was barely holding it together. "He said the colonel wanted to see you. I thought you'd be questioned, I . . ." He broke off, and swallowed. "I didn't even consider – Riley, I-"

Riley couldn't stand to look at his face. Couldn't stand the tone of his voice. She dropped her eyes to the floor, staring at the dried bloodstain for a moment before she realized what it meant.

He'd tried to stop them. That's why they'd hit him. Obviously knocked him out, if he'd laid there bleeding that long. Probably that was why he was still on the boat at all, why they hadn't taken him to do whatever it was they had planned for him.

So they'd done it to punish him. It wasn't about her at all.

It was about controlling Mac.

Riley didn't realize she was clenching her teeth until her jaw twinged. It meant literally _nothing_ to them. She was just a means to an end. This whole entire time. She was a goddamn object, not even an agent. Not to them, and not to Mac. Not if he was looking at her with that face.

They didn't think she could handle it. And they knew Mac wouldn't leave her. They'd put her back in this cell with him, the wounded and frightened victim, like a damned chain around his neck to keep him quiet and compliant.

And she was fucking _over_ it.

Fury bubbled up her throat, and Riley glared at him. " _Tell me_ you got _something_ to get us out of this goddamned room."

At first he seemed to flinch from her anger, but then he surprised her, and she saw a tiny flash of it in his own eyes. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out what looked like a Dutch driver's license.

It wasn't a screwdriver, but in Mac's hands, she knew it was more than sufficient. "Then what the _fuck_ are we waiting for?"

She didn't even give him time to respond; she marched across the small room to pick up her discarded niqab, and then turned back for the sink. Mac reached out a hand, as if to grab her arm, but he stopped himself at the last second.

And that just pissed her off more.

"I'm not made of glass," she snapped. "Either help me or get the hell out of my way."

Mac opened his mouth, then he closed it with a quiet sigh. "I was just going to say, you might want to wear that instead of getting it wet. Right now I'm in the same uniform as some of the guys out there. If it looks like I'm escorting you, we might be able to slip past some of the cameras."

Oh.

She stared at him another long second, then angrily shook out the niqab, trying to find the hijab underneath. "Good idea," she finally muttered. She meant it as an apology of sorts, but it came out grudging.

His hands closed gently over hers, stilling them. "Hey."

Riley took a deep breath, and he gave her a squeeze. The pity and guilt that had been in his eyes earlier had been replaced with no small amount of apology. "I know how tough you are. Way tougher than I am. And I know . . . what it's like to wake up, and not know what's been done to you." His voice was gentle, but steady. "I can only imagine how you feel right now. But we are about to go up against at least thirty armed guards, and I've seen enough of the crew to know they've got plenty of hostages. I know you want to tear them apart, and _believe_ me, I am right there with you, but we have to be smart about this."

He ducked his head a little, fighting to keep her eyes, and Riley felt the fabric twisting in her hands. He was right, of course. She couldn't just go out there and rip all their fucking faces off. But if she got her hands on the ship's computer, well, she could probably find some way to make herself feel better.

She forced herself to take another deep breath, and Mac gave her an encouraging nod.

"You ready?"

"I am way the hell past ready," she growled, but this time he seemed to realize the anger wasn't directed at him, because he gave her a small smile and another quick squeeze before he let her go.

"Then let's do this."

There was no need to use the clean water from the toilet – the drugged water would do fine. Riley filled the cup and brought it to the door, somewhat mollified to see that her hands were no longer shaking like they had been. Mac accepted the cup and carefully started pouring a little water on the two hinges, using his fingers to work the liquid into the gaps in the metal, and Riley jammed the stupid hijab and niqab back over her head.

Once he had the water worked into the soap, Mac jimmied the edge of the laminated license under the head of the hinge pin. She'd just started to wonder if maybe it wasn't going to work after all when he finally got it slipped under, and then carefully worked the flat head of the pin upward. Once it was removed enough that he could get his fingers around it, he did, yanking it halfway out.

Then he did the same with the upper.

"Once the pins come out, I'm going to have to use one to pry the door in a little bit," Mac explained softly. "When I get it open, you need to make sure any guard posted can't call for help. Then we'll head through the ship for the bridge. We'll need the captain's help to get to the crew to safety. Got it?"

He couldn't see her look through the niqab, so she gave him a curt nod.

The pins slid out easily, and then she switched places with Mac, so that he was crouched at the bottom of the door beneath the nonexistent doorknob, and she was standing by the hinges. He stuffed the two pins under the door, glanced up at her, then gave her a nod, and yanked the bottom of the hinge side of the door inwards.

The hinges slipped apart, fully separating the door from the frame, and Riley stuck her fingers into the gap and yanked the door inwards and towards herself. They managed to pull it open, bypassing the lock entirely, and Riley quickly ducked out into the hall. She'd expected to find at least one guard, but even with the niqab partially obscuring the view, she could see there was no one nearby. Just a long, narrow hall, with cabin doors staggered across from one another. They were all closed.

Only the area immediately around their cabin had been painted with the beige paint. Just enough to cover any surface that someone standing in the room could see. The rest of the walls were a tasteful faded green, and Riley spied a dome camera at the end of the hall. She withdrew back into the room.

"One camera, right side," she murmured, as Mac wrestled with the door. He scooted around it, and together they backed into the hallway and set it mostly back into the doorframe, so at the very least there wasn't an obviously gaping hole where a door should be. Still, if anyone was watching the cameras right now, they were screwed, and Mac grabbed her elbow and pulled her urgently to the left.

Despite their need to hurry, the first rule of running was, don't. Motion would attract the eye of anyone watching the cameras. So Riley let Mac steer her at a maddeningly steady pace down the never-ending hallway to a set of stairs that ran both upstairs and down. She thought they'd head up, but instead Mac guided her down sixteen steps, then across the landing and down sixteen more. It was the lowest floor of passenger cabins, and there was a camera right over their heads.

Rather than head down the hall, Mac turned her to the right, and directed her through an unlocked door that led to a service hallway. Her view was still a little obstructed, but she didn't see any people or cameras.

"No eyes," Mac said, at nearly the same moment, and they both took off at a jog. There were multiple doors, all closed, and the signs above them were in English. Maintenance berths, sequentially numbered. No indication of what was behind them. Every once in a while, there was a deep thunking sound she couldn't quite place, like someone had banged the back of an upholstered chair into the wall.

They jogged nearly the entire length of the ship, until up ahead, along the outer wall, there was something that looked a lot like a hatch on a submarine. Mac pulled them up short and spun the wheel, pulling open the watertight door before glanced up the dark shaft. She didn't hear anything, neither an alarm nor a gunshot, and Mac quietly scampered up the ladder. If it was hard to see straight out the niqab, it was nearly fucking impossible to look up, and Riley very nearly pulled the stupid thing off before she heard Mac's quiet whisper float down the shaft..

"We're good. Come on up."

Climbing the ladder in a dress was way the hell harder than she'd thought it would be. The narrow rungs were painful against her bare feet, and the way air was passing through the fabric reminded her that she was climbing sans underwear. She'd closed the hatch behind her, so she was reasonably sure no one was following them, but if anyone did, she'd be giving them a hell of a show.

Not that she hadn't already. At least for the colonel. He'd been in prison for a year, explained the rough handling –

Had she even been awake? Had she fought back?

Riley closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate, one rung at a time. She ignored the way her right hip twinged every time she raised the leg. She just grabbed the skirt and hurried up the ladder.

They went up several decks, and Mac waited until she'd climbed up level with his feet. He caught her eye, then he nodded and pushed open the hatch at the top of the ladder. It opened to the outside; she couldn't hear much, but cool, moist air poured down into the shaft.

He didn't wait for her, ducking immediately outside, and Riley scrambled up the last of the ladder as fast as she could. The service hatch had opened up along a narrow walkway that ran the length of the boat, and their luck finally ran out.

There was no actual guard on the walkway with them. There was no need. Glass lined the entire walkway on her right side, opening into the dimly lit cocktail lounge of the vessel. She saw two men standing by the entrance to a kitchen, keeping watch. One was leaning on the doorframe while the other was talking, gesturing with his hands before miming kicking a soccer ball.

Clearly they hadn't spotted her or Mac.

Yet.

On her left, less than two inches from the walkway's outer railing, instead of cool water lapping up against the bank of a river there was a smooth, wet concrete wall, that reached up higher than the floor of the deck above them.

They were in a lock.

They could either go back down and try to find another way, or they could crouch along the mostly glass wall and hope they weren't spotted.

Mac glanced back at her, clearly considering their options, and Riley couldn't take it anymore and yanked the niqab portion of the headscarf off her face, throwing the veiled part over the back of her head. She still had the hijab on, and it would have to be enough. Mac held out his hand towards her, palm out.

 _Stay here._

Then he turned back for the bow of the ship, crouched as low as he could, and took off in a modified tiger crawl, trying to keep below the sill of the windows.

Riley glared at him. Frankly, she was more irritated by the presumption that she was going to stay behind than because she knew there was no way in hell she could do that in a dress, and there was no way in hell she was going to take the dress off and go naked. Instead, she balled the loose skirt fabric up behind her, sat on the wad of material, and scooted backwards, keeping low along the polished wood decking.

It worked surprisingly well. She didn't make a sound, not even a squeak, and by the time Mac had made it to the end of the lounge wall, she'd caught up to him. He turned, then actually flinched when he saw how close she was, and she gave him a dirty look until he scooted over and made room for her.

The walkable portion of their deck ended short of the bow, and they were only one deck beneath the bridge. There was a second ladder at the end of their walkway for moving between the decks, and Mac sidled up to it, pressing his back to the wall and glancing up through the hole.

She stayed where she was, listening intently. Someone was speaking in Dutch, then another voice answered on a radio.

The captain was talking to the lock operator.

Mac eyed the opening as much as he could before he dared to approach the ladder, and he climbed up only halfway before he suddenly ducked, clinging to the wall like a monkey. He didn't go up any further, apparently waiting for someone to turn or walk away, and then he slowly eased himself up, looking around.

She could tell by the expression on his face that it wasn't going to work. If they were at the lock, some of Aydin's men would be making sure the captain behaved himself. Apparently, there were more of them than Mac could take on.

Damn.

Mac crept back down the ladder, his socked feet not making a sound, and he retreated back to the thin area where they were invisible both to the men in the lounge, and anyone on the upper deck.

"I count five," he breathed. "At least one on the other side."

She looked at him expectantly. "So . . . a diversion?"

He shook his head, his eyes rapidly skimming the lock wall beside them as he thought. "They're not gonna leave the captain alone on the bridge while we're in the lock." Mac cast a glance back down the walkway they'd just taken. "We'll have to find another way."

Above them, there was the low drone of a very large motor, and the odd thunking she'd heard before repeated, a little louder.

It was the sound of the sides of the boat hitting the wall of the lock. If it was as close on the other side as it was on theirs, the boat was literally inches narrower than the concrete box it was floating in. There wasn't enough space for them to pass between the lock and the side of the boat up or down a level.

Back it was.

The wadded up skirt trick worked just as well on the way back as it had the way there, to the point that she was well ahead of Mac by the time she started to realize that the concrete wall was no longer moving beside her. She was keeping even with a pockmark in the cement, which meant –

Sure enough, the boat was moving. It was already pulling out of the lock.

Mac had seen it too; he gestured for her to hurry, which she did, and she was back on her feet by the other hatch by the time Mac finally caught up. They were more than halfway out of the lock, and Mac ushered her towards the stern of the ship rather than back down the original ladder.

She didn't need to be told twice, hurrying along the narrow deck past more glass windows, each peering into the most lavish cabins on the boat. All of these had their blinds pulled – whether there were soldiers in them, or that was simply to hide that there was no one on the ship was debatable, but it meant no one on the ship could see them, either. The boat had sailed three quarters of the way out of the lock by the time she reached the rear of the boat, and Mac hit the railing beside her, glancing down.

He clearly didn't see what he wanted, because he whirled around, looking up and down the walls with a frown. He glanced past her, eyes fixed on a point, and Riley turned to see there was a rectangular indentation in the wall of the lock, right before it opened back onto the river. There was a maintenance ladder screwed into it.

Riley glanced back at Mac, and he nodded. "Go," he whispered. "I've got an idea."

She glared at him, well aware he could actually see it this time, and he squeezed past her, grabbing her left elbow on the way.

"Mac-" she hissed, and he shot her a silencing look as he pulled her along.

"There's too many of them, Riley, and they're too well placed. We'll get caught. The only way to help these people is to bring the help to them."

He shoved her towards the quickly approaching ladder, not ungently, and she caught his hand. "Mac, I'm _not_ leaving you here –"

"I'm right behind you. Get ready."

She continued glaring at him, but she put her butt on the railing, prepared to swing over when the concrete opened up. True to his word, he was right behind her with a hand on her left shoulder, and as the ladder came up, she swung her legs into the sudden gap and slipped off the railing. She caught the ladder, but it was _very_ cold, and much more slippery than she'd expected. She slid down a couple rungs before she could tighten her hold, and then she shot a quick look over her shoulder.

Mac was right there, pacing her along the railing. "Go go go!" he urged in a quiet hiss.

He was running out of deck.

Riley turned and grabbed as much loose skirt as she could in her right hand, using her feet and her left hand to take the rungs two at a time. She made it back up quickly, hanging on for dear life so she didn't slip and send him into the river, and once she knew she was well and truly clear, she turned and looked over her right shoulder.

And found him standing flat-footed on the deck below as the last of the railing sailed by the ladder.

" _Mac!_ "

He winced at her volume, putting a finger urgently to his lips, and then he put his fist by his right ear, and stuck out his thumb and his pinky in the universal symbol for a telephone.

 _Call for help._

She shot him a universal symbol of her own, one that expressed her frustration and furiousness, and Mac dropped his fist to the rear railing, bouncing it once in a farewell gesture before he turned for the door on the back of the ship.

-M-

Mac pulled open the door nearest him, allowing himself to smile at the very Italian gesture Riley had thrown his way. For a brief second he forgot that it wasn't Jack who was mentally screaming at him for doing something both dangerous and stupid.

That thought wiped the smile right off his face. If it had been his partner, he'd have reminded Jack that this needed to be a two-pronged approach, and one of them had to slow down the ship while the other brought in reinforcements. And thanks to his uniform, he was going to be able to move around the ship much more freely than Riley could.

If it had been his partner, Jack probably would have called those out as the excuses they were. The truth was, they were on a river. As soon as Hakan and Aydin realized he and Riley had escaped, the only way off the boat was to find an unoccupied dock big enough, or take the tender, and it wasn't big enough for both the Turks and the boat's crew.

Which meant the Turks would flee, and it was fifty-fifty odds that they wouldn't risk the sound of gunfire being overheard while they slaughtered the remaining passengers and crew.

Those odds weren't good enough. _He'd_ let Aydin loose. He hadn't thought for a second that he'd be kept in a boat, under the water line, and that the tracker would be undetectable. Phoenix should have gotten to them almost immediately. He'd actually been afraid they'd respond too quickly, before he was able to find Riley.

Instead, Jack had no damn idea where he and Riley were, or where the colonel was. It was his fault that it had gone this far. His fault the unsuspecting crew of a river cruise were doing their jobs at the end of a gun.

He was going to have a hard time looking Jack in the eye after this, and trying to explain why he hadn't been able to get Riley off the boat before-

 _You don't know what happened. And neither does she._

And that just made it worse.

Mac closed his eyes a moment, and took a deep breath. When he exhaled, he balled up all the thoughts and emotions swirling around in his head, and he stuffed them into their allotted compartment, to be examined at a later date, if ever. Then he took a second breath, opened his eyes, and walked brazenly down the hall.

Hopefully whoever saw him on camera wouldn't notice the blood. Or the fact he wasn't wearing shoes.

Mac was at the stern of the ship, over the keel, which put him in the general vicinity of the engine room. The weight of it would serve to stabilize the ship, and since this one was relatively new, it was likely a diesel electric hybrid, which meant not only did he have generators and a fuel tank to play with, but big-ass batteries as well. He took the first stairwell he found, moving at a normal walking pace, ears straining for anything that sounded remotely like a voice or a footstep.

Without a couple inches of plywood to mask the sound, he could finally make out the low hum of the engine, and thanks to the hour and the darkness, there wasn't much in the way of extraneous noise. The floors were designed to mask the sound of high heels, but not so much for combat boots, and Mac was able to pick up the sound of the much wider tread on the carpet as he approached the next deck. He scurried down the stairs and tucked himself into the corner, readying himself, and the footfalls – and a shadow – passed the open door without entering the stairwell.

Mac gave it a three count, then continued as if nothing had happened.

He made it back to the lowest guest floor, and from there it was easy to determine where the maintenance stairs were. They were unlocked to facilitate the movement of Aydin's men around the ship – no need to keep the passengers out, which gave Mac a little bit of hope there weren't any on board. All the locks on the floor had red lights, indicating the electronic locks were active, but that only kept him from going in, it didn't keep them from coming out.

Either way, he couldn't start freeing passengers until he had control of the ship. And that wasn't going to happen while it still had power. They were safer where they were, if they were still on board.

Mac took the stairs down, finding the hatch at the bottom unlocked, and he turned the wheel at the usual speed despite the noise. He'd seen Jack do it a thousand times, walk right into an enemy's territory like he owned the place, and even staring right at his face it usually took them a few moments to process that he didn't belong. If he tried to sneak through this door and there was a soldier on the other side of it, they'd know for sure he didn't belong.

He pulled open the door, eyeing the left side of the hallway quickly and finding it empty before putting his back to it and stepping through.

And not three feet from him was a man, a little taller than he was, in an olive drab shirt and khaki tac pants.

The man stared at him a moment, then started to give him a nod before a look of surprise crossed his face. That was all Mac let him have. He rushed the guy, digging his shoulder into the soldier's solar plexus and slamming him against the pipes that ran along the wall. The soldier grunted and fell, and Mac straddled and pinned him. He landed two punches before he was sure the guy was out, and then Mac scrambled to his feet and shoved the soldier as far under the overhang of the pipes as he could. The guy probably wasn't completely out of sight of the cameras – of which there were at least two he could see – but frankly his odds of moving around the ship freely were getting worse with each passing minute, and if they didn't already know he was down there, they were all going to figure it out in the next sixty seconds.

Mac quickly unlaced the man's boots and yanked them off, then ducked across the hallway into one of the passages that ran along the ribs of the ship, finding a narrow door with a window that showed him the well-lit, green-painted engine room. He was right about the hybrid engines; neat, large rectangular generators lined the walls, and the pistons that drove the ship's propellers made up the spine of the keel, hidden in fanlike aluminum boxes lined up like vertebrae. The batteries were likely in the next compartment.

He let himself into the room, unsurprised when a sudden wave of noise slapped him almost physically in the face. There would be no hearing anyone sneaking up on him in this environment, and Mac pulled the door shut firmly behind him, glancing around before he located a fire axe. He used it to jam the door mechanism, studying the helpful diagram on the door as he did so, noting all the emergency exits and ladders back up to the decks.

In a very short while, his life was going to depend on that mental snapshot.

While he was crouched, he shoved his feet into the boots, finding them a size too large, but not too bad, and rather than spend time lacing them, he stuffed the bootlaces into the tops. Then he hurried along the keel, looking for the master fuel shut-off valve. In a green-painted room, the red was readily visible, and Mac eyed the enormous valve a moment. What he needed was –

There was a yellow-painted maintenance cabinet, just across the way, and Mac was grateful to find it too was unlocked. The only people who usually had access to this floor were the engineers, so there was no need for them to lock up their own tools. What he needed was a cartoonishly large wrench, and there, hanging in its appointed place, was a monster adjustable spanner. Had to be at least twenty-four inches, and when he picked it up, it weighed in at a good twelve pounds.

He could almost hear Jack's giddy little chuckle, and Mac grinned himself, hefting the tool as he carried it back to the shutoff valve.

"You're gonna be sad you missed this one, big guy," he murmured, fitting the adjustable spanner around the nut at the top of the valve. He loosened the nut just enough to make turning the valve easy, then he cranked the wheel down hard. Immediately, red lights started flashing as the generators felt the choke, and he knew the board on the bridge was going crazy. Mac finished turning the wheel, then continued loosening the bolt, until diesel actually started bubbling out of the top of the valve assembly. He backed off before he could get more than misted, taking the spanner with him, and sprinted for the next compartment.

Taking out the generators prevented any more electricity from being generated. It did not, however, stop the motors or anything else powered by electricity on the ship. They still had a good hour and a half of battery power left. He'd have to take those out as well.

The diagram on the door of the generator compartment proved to be quite accurate, and Mac bolted out that door and immediately into the next watertight compartment, which was also bathed in green.

It wasn't green paint, however. It was green light. Green LEDs, in countless, precise rows of black blades, each three feet thick, lined up neatly almost as far as the eye could see. It would have been beautiful if it hadn't looked almost exactly like an overgrown server farm.

Every twelve feet or so there was a computer terminal. That was it. No visible electrical boxes, no pipes, no mechanical infrastructure at all.

Mac felt his stomach sink. Riley could probably have had the entire room rigged to overload in twenty seconds flat. He could almost see her lips turning up in a smug little smirk.

". . . Ri, you owe me a big fat I told you so," he muttered to himself, jogging into the room in the hopes of finding something that didn't look like it belonged in the data center in the basement of Phoenix. About halfway down, his wish came true. There was a flat black maintenance hatch in the ground between two blade clusters, and Mac dropped the spanner, leaned down, and yanked up on the recessed handle with both hands.

And there was his infrastructure, under the floor in perfectly backlit relief. Thick conduit ran like arteries along the keel, broken up every twelve feet with electrical boxes. The maintenance area was about four feet tall, and Mac dropped down into it, looking for anything like a main board.

And while it was clearly meant to be managed from a computer terminal, the manual overrides were all there, well-ordered little switches covered in clear plexiglass cases.

Mac used his forearms to flip the switchguards up, a dozen at a time, and ran his other hand along the switches as he went, cutting them off instantly. The board was meant to be controlled by a computer, and he threw the master switch as well, then rushed back to the maintenance hatch and halfway up the tiny ladder to grope around for the oversized spanner. His hand closed on the PVC-coated handle and he hefted the tool back down into the hole. Mac lined up the swing like Abe Alvarez, calculated for the most physical damage against the weakest part of the board, and he sucked in a breath and let it fly. At the last second he let the spanner go, with just enough time to let his arm continue the swing and protectively cover his face.

The flash was terrific, even through his eyelids, and Mac flinched away from the spitting burn of sparks, stumbling over the conduits on the floor and falling flat on his ass. By the time he blinked the stars out of his eyes, he could tell the room was in almost total darkness, and Mac ignored the fireworks still going off along his optic nerves, and made a beeline for the maintenance stairwell.

There were a few red emergency lights on, but the room was otherwise pitch black, and Mac sprinted along the grating between the now-dark battery blades and exploded out of the compartment towards the bow of the ship.

The hallways here were just as dark, with only a few emergency lights surviving the massive power surge he'd sent along the ship's electrical grid, and Mac ran flat out back towards the middle of the ship. Aydin's guys would come in from the ends to sweep the level and do damage assessment. He was less likely to encounter someone in the middle stairwells, and with the cameras out, they couldn't easily track him through the boat.

He only made it up one deck before he was spotted.

The man shouted in Turkish, but he didn't hear a gunshot, nor feel the burn of a bullet, and Mac threw himself up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time and using his arms to yank himself up the bannisters. He didn't encounter anyone on the next deck, which put him two below the waterline, but whoever had spotted him below entered the stairwell, and Mac bounded up the next set of stairs, counting on his long legs and lesser weight to give him a speed advantage.

There was no getting to the captain and no negotiating. The Turks didn't have time to go methodically through the boat to execute passengers and crew. The boat was now dead in the water, and it would quickly start drifting back down the river. They weren't that far from the lock, which is where it would eventually ground itself, and the police Riley had called would be able to board it from there.

Aydin had no choice but to flee, as fast as he could. It didn't guarantee that none of the crew or passengers would die, but it was the best Mac could do.

MacGyver made it to the next landing, which was slightly better lit thanks to its proximity to the surface and city lights, and a dark shape dashed out of the hallway right at him. Mac used the soldier's weight and mass against him, spinning with the attempted tackle and sending the man towards the downward running stairs, and Mac continued the spin, managing to shake the guy's hands off him before he too was dragged down a flight of stairs. The move completely stopped his forward momentum, however, and Mac sucked air into his burning lungs, grabbed the railing, and hauled himself forward with enough force to pull the still-sore muscles in his back.

He flew up the last flight of stairs, throwing himself towards the doors that led back to the narrow walkway he and Riley had taken not half an hour ago. This time it was not empty. There was plenty of light to see by, and Mac danced to the side, barely avoiding what looked like a police baton coming right at his face. It smashed into the glass beside him, shattering it, and Mac turned his face aside as shards of the stuff peppered him. The soldier landed on top of him, in nearly the same position Mac had used to pin the guy downstairs, and Mac blocked the hit to his face purely on instinct, taking a stiff body blow in order to get a hand free.

He jammed his thumb into his attacker's eye, which softened the incoming baton strike enough that it didn't shatter his left forearm outright. Both he and the Turk shouted with pain, and Mac bucked his hips hard, managing to get enough wiggle room to roll the guy off-balance and kick him back. Mac scrambled backwards, getting his right hand on the railing of the deck, and without the slightest hesitation he yanked himself up towards it, fully intent on the extremely cold, black water just on the other side of it.

He didn't make it.

Something slammed into his chest with terrific force, sending him flying back into the glass wall of the lounge, and he felt the glass give, sending him into a second fall that was broken by a sturdy wooden table. It tipped over rather than shattering, and Mac slithered to the thick carpet in a shower of tiny shards of safety glass.

He felt his mouth stretch wide, gasping for air, and he managed to get his eyes open in time to see a silhouette standing on the outer rail of the ship. It looked like he'd swung down from the deck above.

It was exactly the kind of move that Jack would have done. And it explained why he felt like he'd just been kicked in the chest by a mule.

Mac heard multiple feet crunching through the glass towards him, but he was too stunned and too winded to mount any kind of defense. His forearms were grabbed and he was dragged out of the glass into the center of the room. For some reason they let him go, and Mac took advantage of the respite to cough up a lung.

He knew it wouldn't last, and he was right.

Long before he'd caught his breath, he was yanked to his feet, and Mac stumbled through the moonlit lounge and down a wide stairwell into the boat's main reception area. He could see a crowd was gathered there, including one shape that was too big to be anyone but Aydin himself. Orders were being barked in Turkish; he only made out a word here and there before he was thrown against the wall beside the hostess stand. He caught the wooden podium, which was the only thing that kept him on his feet, and glared up at the soldier who'd tossed him there, the one leveling a nine mil at his face.

He had a front row seat to the damage he'd wrought, which didn't happen all that often, and Mac ignored the gun and quietly observed.

The tender had been warmed up and was being used to quickly shuttle men and equipment off the boat. They moved with a sense of urgency but without panic, in the way of well-trained militaries the world over, and Mac was quickly able to determine who was in charge of logistics. It was a Turk he hadn't seen before, and everyone, including his old friend from the colonel's mansion, accepted his quiet orders without question.

A few crates made their way through the space, out to the tender, but the labels and stamps were too small and dark for him to make out in the dim light. Fully half the men were in civilian clothing, but they were also the men who didn't seem to be taking the tender to shore. Several people were on smartphones, but others were using two-way and shortwave radio, and a faint glow from the landing above the lobby showed him the profile of the woman from earlier, seated at a small table, working on her laptop.

. . . which was a very strange thing to be doing when everyone else was abandoning ship. Considering wifi should have been knocked out with the power, she must be using her own hotspot.

The monitor light had a blueish tinge, and suddenly it clicked, and he remembered where he'd seen her. The UN representative, who'd been chatting with the severe-looking woman from the US State Department at Aydin's trial. He remembered watching them speak, and wondering if her sky-blue headscarf was based in religion or fashion, and he had any chance of getting his hands on it to use it.

She must be Aydin's hacker. He really did have his own Riley. And he had an inside woman at the UN to boot.

That was how he'd gotten the credentials to land those helicopters at Camp Bondsteel. That could be how he'd gotten to Matty. As a representative for the trial, the woman would have access to all the witnesses, the other jurists, intelligence organizations _including_ the State Department –

Almost as if she sensed his gaze, the woman turned and looked at him, and Mac let his eyes slide by her, as if he was just taking in the entire scene as a whole.

He couldn't hide his flinch, however, when a voice spoke almost directly into his left ear. "I see you've finally recognized Liris."

Mac refused to look at his shadow, continuing to watch the men working. "Is that her name?"

"In part." The sergeant sounded slightly distracted, and Mac finally did glance at him, unsurprised to see he had a finger held up to his ear. Listening on coms. Whatever the message was, it was relayed quickly, because the interrogator focused back on him almost immediately. "Where is the woman?"

Mac bared his teeth. "Her _name_ is Riley Davis. And it doesn't look like you have the time to be worrying about her right now."

The sergeant's expression remained impassive. "She disembarked, then. Most likely at the lock."

Mac knew the question had been rhetorical. Hakan was well aware that he would never have left Riley alone somewhere on the boat to be found by one of the men. Instead of confirming or denying, Mac straightened painfully, keeping a hand on the podium as much for support as to prevent the soldier across from him from shooting him. "Or maybe she's hacked her way into your wifi hotspot and transmitted your location to every intelligence agency on the globe. You _do_ know everything you broadcast over radio, data, and cellular networks is collected by Dutch intelligence, right? Or did I forget to mention that?"

He might be overstating the Dutch surveillance capabilities, but their little agreement was well and truly dead, and Mac didn't care if Hakan thought he was lying. If nothing else he could plant doubt in the man's mind, maybe at least slow down their communication and response.

And maybe buy Riley enough time to call the cavalry.

"I'm aware," Hakan assured him, giving him more of his attention. His dark eyes glittered in the lights of the city outside. "Of both their strengths and their weaknesses. The infrastructure here for law enforcement is quite developed. Any INTERPOL member can send a country-wide alert in a matter of minutes to every politie cruiser with a laptop." The interrogator then glanced up the stairs, toward Aydin's hacker.

"Presuming the format in correct – and it must be exact – there is no other oversight to that particular system. Yet strangely, as quickly as an alert can be sent, it takes hours to recall one from that same system." The sergeant continued to study the hacker at the top of the stairs – Liris, he'd called her. "Which means that the very police your Riley Davis has summoned to save her will in fact be the men who kill her."

Mac fought hard to keep his expression neutral.

 _You know that's not true. Jack is already working with the local law enforcement, even if Phoenix isn't. He'd never let it happen. Never._

"As for you . . ."

Mac dredged up a smirk. "I won't make a very good distraction if I'm dead."

"That's true," a booming voice agreed, and the colonel stepped across the lobby towards them. Mac kept the sarcastic grin on his face, hoping they could see it in the dark.

"I told you I'd get the colonel out of the Hague, sergeant, and I did. I told you exactly how to get him out of the country. I told you that I'd help you as long as Riley remained unhurt. You didn't listen. All of this . . . this is on you."

While insulting the interrogator's principles had never gotten him anywhere, attacking his competency seemed to get under his skin, because the man stiffened a little, well aware that his colonel's eyes were on him. ". . . yes. It seems that I have underestimated you."

Mac snorted, then shook his head. Seeing as he was being held at gunpoint in a room he had no hope of escaping, and was probably going to die in the next few minutes, it was pretty obvious Hakan hadn't miscalculated when it came to him.

"Not me, sergeant. You underestimated Riley." He transferred his glare to the colonel. "And trust me when I tell you that you will live to regret it."

The logistics soldier approached them, murmuring something to the colonel, and Aydin gave him a sharp nod. "Well, my American friend, at least I will not be alone in that." Aydin glanced at Hakan, and the sergeant inclined his head and withdrew. Mac watched him follow the logistics soldier as the colonel took the interrogator's place, out of the way along the wall beside him.

"It's over, colonel. You have to see that. You're still in the Netherlands. Air traffic has been locked down. If you try and make your final stand here, your men are going to die."

Aydin gusted out a sigh, and Mac found himself wondering exactly how many liters of air the man's massive lungs could move.

"The situation is not ideal, American, but it is far from dire." Under direction from the logistics officer, the men in uniform began filing onto the tender. "You have indeed caused me quite a problem. I can no longer prevent the boat from being discovered. And I understand you did truly impressive damage to the engines."

A plain-clothed solider jogged into the room, slipping off a large pack, and he handed it off to Hakan. Mac watched uneasily as the interrogator accepted it, and immediately headed down the stairs on Mac's left.

"So it shall come to no one's surprise that the damage caused a breach in the boat's hull," the colonel continued, his voice regretful. "While it's true the river is not so deep the boat will completely submerge, that will be little comfort to the men and women on the lower decks."

It was explosives. That's what was in the pack the sergeant had just taken down the stairs.

Mac rounded on the colonel, completely forgetting about his guard until he was grabbed and shoved against the wall. He barely felt it. " _No!_ There's no reason to kill them! They're no threat to you!"

The colonel's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Kill them? Little American, I'm not going to kill them. Can you not hear? I cannot prevent first responders from finding this place. As you said, I am in need of a distraction. Something to keep them occupied while we acquire alternate transportation." He gestured broadly at the boat. "It is a large vessel. It will require many men to search it and confirm it is empty before the lower decks are flooded. It is my hope the Dutch will send enough to complete the rescue in time, but who can say?"

Mac struggled for all he was worth, but he didn't have the leverage, and Aydin calmly surveyed the reception area. Up on the landing, Liris had closed up her laptop, and she was descending the stairs towards them. She nodded to the colonel, then her cold eyes fell on him, and Mac glared at her.

There was no reason to believe that she couldn't manipulate INTERPOL. Still, whatever it was she'd put into motion, Jack and Riley would handle it.

They had to.

"But of course you would believe that we always intended to drown them," the colonel murmured, as if to himself. "That is what we are to you, American, no? I am merely a copy of Erdogan. There is no difference between us."

"If there is, I haven't seen it yet," Mac snarled, still trying to shove the soldier off him. He took a strike in the side for his trouble. "You could always . . . . prove me wrong, and surrender peacefully."

Strangely, the colonel gave him a fond smile. "As you are doing, right now? In the face of insurmountable odds?"

He was fighting for his life. Fighting for all the people that were trapped in the lower decks. Fighting for what was right.

He knew the colonel was recalling his comment at dinner, earlier, about him and his slippery principles. But there was a difference between them, a core difference the colonel was ignoring. "If we do this my way, everyone lives. No one has to die today!"

"We _are_ doing this your way, as you say," the colonel corrected him. "Had you not disabled the boat, the crew would never have been in danger. Four hours from now we would have landed at port, disembarked, and left them unharmed to return to their lives. What was it you said to the sergeant? Ah. This . . . is on you."

The colonel punctuated the words with a powerful blow to his abdomen, again one he barely saw coming, and every bit as hard as the very first time Aydin had hit him, back in that field in Cilingoz Tabiat Park. The soldier that had been holding him back was now the only thing holding him up, and Mac leaned on him heavily, gasping around the pain.

Aydin was momentarily distracted by one of his men, this one in some kind of civilian uniform, and it took Mac's blurry eyes a while to figure out the misshapen peacock's tail on the guy's ass was actually a pair of heavy duty work gloves poking out of his back pocket. When he turned for the door and the waiting tender, Mac caught the letters DBS-something on his cap. Then he was gone, and Mac was shoved back up against the wall.

"This distraction, I think it will work well." The colonel's voice was calm, as if nothing had happened. "At least for the Dutch. But your partner, and your agency . . . they do not seem to care overly for civilian lives."

That was garbage, but Mac didn't have the breath to correct him.

"The sergeant had thought to use you as a distraction for them. I agree with him. And, as you say, you would make a poor distraction if you were dead."

The colonel gestured, and the soldier holding him shoved him again – a little more gently this time – and backed off. Mac was able to keep his feet, and he sucked down deep breaths, watching the colonel warily. The tender had just left; it would be back for the rest of the men shortly, but until then, this was probably as alone as he was ever going to get Batuhan Aydin.

Not that he had the slightest idea what he could possibly do to the colonel in the next few minutes. Or had any hope of outrunning them and getting downstairs to those explosives before they blew.

Unless -

This time he saw the colonel move, he'd been expecting it, and deep down he knew where that comment had to be headed. And Aydin didn't bother to move quickly. He didn't have to. He took his man's place, pinning Mac between himself and the wall, and Mac's hastily raised defense stopped the tactical knife less than an inch from his chest.

Mac's arms were trembling from the strain. Aydin's were perfectly steady.

"Careful, my American friend," the colonel warned him, his voice easy and calm. "You do not want to die too quickly."

Mac might as well have been fighting an industrial drill press. It would have done him the same amount of good. The colonel effortlessly drove the knife into his chest, just to the right of his sternum, with the control and precision of a surgeon. Like before, he wasn't quick. He kept a steady, inexorable pressure on the knife that did not change, no matter how hard Mac struggled against him. He could actually _feel_ the metal penetrate the costal cartilage between his rib and his sternum, could feel the vibrations in the blade as it slid past rigid bone into his front of his lung.

A short, guttural shout was ripped from his throat, and Mac's arms lost all their strength, but the speed of the knife never changed. He gave a strangled cry when he felt it exit his quivering lung, felt it encounter the bony edge of his spine. Felt the pinch on the skin of his back as the tip sliced through from the inside out.

They hung there for an endless moment, staring at one other. Mac managed to suck in half a breath, and an emotion he couldn't identify flitted across Aydin's face. Then the colonel gathered himself and thrust brutally into him, crushing the hilt of the blade into his chest and driving any remaining air from his lungs.

Then he let go, and Mac understood.

The knife had penetrated completely through him, and into the plaster wall behind him. Like a bug in a collection, it was the pin holding him in place.

He was no good as a distraction if he was dead. But if he was dying, if he was mortally wounded, well, then he'd be pretty damn distracting. Pinned to the wall in reception, just next to the hostess stand, he was going to be literally the first thing anyone saw when they boarded the boat.

The first thing Jack saw.

Mac could feel his mouth working desperately, but his throat had sealed itself shut. He couldn't even wheeze. Couldn't make a sound.

The colonel took a step back, surveying his work. Then he nodded to himself. "Save your breaths, American," he advised. "You do not have many left."

It didn't take long for his shocked body to grasp the magnitude of the damage that had just been done. He would have screamed if he could; the best he could do was a sharp choke, and he heard the hiss of what little air he'd managed to pull in exit the front of his chest with a strange bubbling sensation.

That sensation quickly built into agony, and Mac left his hands where they were, clutching the hilt of the knife, for fear that even the slightest movement was going to shatter him into pieces. His hearing and eyesight diminished to almost nothing. There were sounds, flickering lights – none of it mattered.

All that mattered was breathing, and not moving.

And he couldn't figure out how to do both at the same time.

His best compromise consisted of constant, tiny movement. Very shallow breaths, taken very quickly made the pain pulse, and he could predict the pulses and brace for them. Eventually he timed them with his other pulse, the one he felt deep in his chest, felt both in his heart, and in the flesh and muscle touching the white-hot knife.

It was possibly the right ventricle of his heart encountering the flat of the blade. If it wasn't punctured, it was pushing against the metal, which meant it was compromised. Couldn't pump effectively. Explained why his pulse was so fast. Explained –

Mac moaned and held his breath when his nerveless right hand finally slipped off the hilt, and long seconds of anticipation made the pain, when it finally hit, so much worse. His legs were all pins and needles, he knew they'd give out soon, and then he'd be hanging from the blade and nothing else. It already felt like it was slicing up towards his clavicle. Every breath was a new sliver carved out of him.

He couldn't bear it.

Mac couldn't hold back a short, sharp sob, and then he wrapped his rapidly weakening left hand around the hilt, and he yanked with everything he had.

It felt like he'd just been stabbed with another knife, directly beside the first one, but he didn't come anywhere near wrenching the thing out. All he accomplished was jarring the tip loose from the wall just enough that his body weight finally tore it free. He shuddered down the wall, the tip catching and ripping on the plaster and his flesh all the way down, and when he finally, finally came to a stop, all he could do was weep with relief that it was over.

No cloth within reach. He knew he didn't have the strength to pull the knife out, and even if he did, he'd just bleed faster. There were no matches. No electrical socket in reach. Nothing to cauterize the wound. No way to call for help.

Nothing he could do. Nothing but sit absolutely still, and breathe as shallowly as he could.

Gradually his world expanded beyond the pain. His heart didn't have to work quite as hard to get oxygen to his brain. His failing eyes could see that he was alone. No shapes, no footsteps. No movement. Where he'd slumped behind the hostess stand, he couldn't even see the lights of the city. The knife tip still protruding from his back was an antenna, broadcasting every slight motion of the ship, and he felt them grind agonizingly over a sandbar on the bottom of the river, felt the drag of the rocks scraping the hull as if his own spine was the keel.

He knew it instantly when the explosives blew, and he felt water pouring into the ship as surely as he felt the blood trickling down his chest and his back, felt it crackling and frothing in his lungs.

He wasn't going to make it.

Jack.

If the tracker hadn't been detectable until he'd been above the waterline, then the first time Phoenix could have possibly caught it was at dinner with Aydin. The second time was right now. They'd been sailing for days. He was nowhere near Rotterdam. It would take Jack hours by air, even if he wrangled a helo, and his first stop had to be Riley.

Had to be.

The first responders she'd summoned would probably think he was a terrorist, no matter what Riley told them. They'd need boats of their own to get to him, and once they did they weren't going to do a damn thing for him. Even if they tried, he knew it was too late, and the damage was too severe. If he didn't bleed to death first, he would drown in his own blood. He wasn't going to make it to Jack.

And Jack wasn't going to make it to him.

The last time he'd been certain of that had been Venezuela. Lying on the floor of a bathroom, curled up around an almost empty toilet, he'd wished for nothing more than pen and paper, so he could leave a message.

This time he could leave a message.

Mac let his chin drop to his chest, staring past the black hilt of the knife to where his long, thin legs stretched out in front of him. The rug beneath him was burgundy, nearly the same color as blood, but his pants were khaki. The color of the fabric was plenty light enough, and there was no shortage of ink.

Moving his left arm as little as possible, Mac dipped his finger in the growing pool of blood in his lap, then braced his trembling wrist on his thigh, and painstakingly dabbed out the letters, grabbing ink as needed.

S-I-N-K-N

First responders would have no reason to suspect the hull was breached. They wouldn't immediately hurry below decks, they'd sweep the boat from the top down, carefully. And it would cost the people trapped below precious time they didn't have.

The boat was still drifting, apparently near the bank in the shallows, but he wondered how much of what he was feeling was the crew, beating on the doors, struggling not to drown.

He knew the feeling.

Mac swallowed down the blood and took a slightly deeper breath as he became aware of how lightheaded he was getting. Message. He had to leave a message.

Where was the colonel going.

He'd said alternate transportation. It could be anything. Buses, cars, taxis, speedboats. Hell, unicorns for all he knew. The men had been both in uniform and not, so maybe two different paths. The military path would have to be invisible. The others were dressed like . . . like Europeans. They could go anywhere. Anywhere they wanted.

Except peacock ass.

He'd been in uniform, but not military. Work gloves. A hat. DB S . . . Schen? Schender? He could almost see the logo, the DB in a red square. It was a . . .

Shipping. German shipping company.

Trucks.

Mac stared down at his right hand, but he couldn't do more than twitch his fingers. Each movement traveled back to the gaping, burning hole in his chest. His legs themselves had gone motionless and numb, and he wondered if it was shock, or the trip down the wall had hit his spinal cord. It didn't matter.

He was stuck with the canvas he had. His left thigh.

This time he went higher, towards the top, and chose fewer letters.

S-E-M-I

It was all the space there was.

Not enough to say he was sorry. To tell Riley that it was going to be okay. To tell Bozer how proud he was. To tell Jack to take care of them.

To say thank you.

The last time, it had been too hot to cry. It hadn't hurt, at least not like this. It had been darker. But the feeling of being smothered, of not being able to breathe, that was exactly the same. He remembered the panic, the confusion, the taste of vomit and citrus punch in his mouth.

Mostly the panic. The terrifying sensation of slowly suffocating.

He didn't want to feel that again. He didn't want that to be the last thing he ever felt.

Mac managed to pick up his head, staring into the darkness. No flashing lights. Maybe sirens, but they sounded distant, somewhere in the city. Maybe Riley had already sicced the cops on Aydin and his men. Maybe she thought he was still with them.

There was no Jack. Not even his ghost, the hallucination of his presence that had watched over him through so many painful nights. No Bozer, sitting in the shadows beside him offering silent support.

He was truly alone.

Mac didn't even try to fight the tears.

 _I'm sorry, guys. I'm so, so sorry._

Jack was never going to forgive him for this.

But he just . . . just couldn't. Every breath was a struggle, and he was losing too much ground. It hurt.

He hurt.

Too much.

Mac forced himself to take a couple deeper breaths, to fend off the feeling of suffocation, if only for a few moments. Then he let his head fall back against the wall, and closed his eyes. The floor dropped out from beneath him as he exhaled, and a muted roar swelled up from the black. His last thoughts were of Riley, standing on the top of the lock, and Jack wrapping her up safe in his arms.

-M-

I just want to remind you all - if you kill me, I can't finish this story.

So, in summary – the shit hath hitteth the fan. Aydin's in the wind. Riley's off the boat, but Liris isn't about to let her get out of this alive. As for Mac . . . he did what he set out to do, but it might have just cost him everything.

This isn't the cliffhanger I intended. I was planning to show exactly what Liris was up to, and where Jack was in relation to his kids. However, Jack decided to be a stubborn a-hole and that he really needed to take more time than I anticipated, and the chapter was once again getting way too long. My wonderful beta reader is on your side, and suggested you folks would prefer I post this now, with the caveat that I post the next section soon, even if it's shorter.

I guess we'll find out if she was right.


	11. Chapter 11

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

The only reason they didn't fast rope in was, frankly, the lack of rope.

The sleek NH90 hadn't even hit the pavement before he and Saito were out of the bird, and Jack adjusted the coms in his ear as he crouch-sprinted to the nearest decent cover, a brick building about ten yards from the LZ. Saito and Tunne were at his back, and Jack eased up to the corner, taking a quick peek around.

Brick didn't chip away near his face, which was always a nice surprise, but Jack didn't think for a second they hadn't been spotted.

One, a helicopter landing in the middle of dinnertime halfway between Cologne and Münster was apparently unusual. Two, the guy they were looking for knew they were coming, and had holed himself up in the only reasonably defensible building around.

It had cost them five politie – maybe six, they weren't sure that last guy was gonna pull through – but Harlan had finally gotten his foil in the Netherlands Armed Forces to get off his ass and give them some goddamn support in the form of a decently fast helo and refueling capabilities. Mouse had already given them a heat signature sweep of the area, and naturally, the only occupied building anywhere near the tracking signal – which seemed to be coming quite strongly from an empty car, and much more faintly from inside the building – had at least ten people inside.

Their target had realized he wasn't going to make Cologne, and he'd grabbed every poor slob working late in the three story insurance firm and pulled them up onto the third floor.

Hostages, height, good view lines, very little cover near the building, and just enough time to fortify. This guy was in it for the long game.

Which meant his sole purpose was to waste their time. He wouldn't be easy to take alive. And clearly the hostages were fair game.

On the plus side, right up until their bird touched down, he'd probably thought he'd be picking off more politie. Being confronted with a spec ops team was probably not on the radar for this guy, at least not this fast.

Jack felt a firm hand tap his left shoulder, indicating that the seven man team was off the bird and in position, and Jack listened impatiently for the op commander to get on the damn horn.

"Castle, Archer One, in position, over."

Radios were radios the world over, and thank god everyone spoke English. "This is Castle, you are five by five, over."

"Roger Castle, we are five by five. Awaiting orders, over."

"Archer Archer, you are a go. Execute execute execute!"

Jack waited for the second tap, which would tell him everyone heard and was ready, and as soon as he got it, he moved immediately to the next piece of cover. It was a car, which was less than ideal – particularly if the guy had a rifle with a decent caliber – but second after second ticked by, and there was no retaliation.

The parking lot was pretty empty – there were basically a dozen vehicles, mostly bunched further away from the building, since the guys who were still at work at this hour typically didn't roll in until the morning was half over. No hedges, only a few concrete boxes holding streetlamps spotted the otherwise empty pavement. They'd cut the power to the block, but the parking lot lights were solar, and shining brightly into the night. For a sniper up three stories, it was basically a video game free for all. He could pick them off at his leisure.

In Jack's ear, the radio popped. "Lorry One, Lorry Two, deploy."

Dalton waited until the two politie forensic trucks – both empty of everyone except the drivers, who were heavily armored – squealed into the parking lot, then he sprinted for the next nearest car, trusting Saito to move as well, and take his former position.

His next piece of cover was the only car that was relatively near the building. The one that happened to be a Beamer.

The one where the isotope signature was strongest.

The one Jack was more than half worried was going to contain a familiar gangly blond, folded up neatly in the trunk. When Mouse had done her scan for heat signatures, the Beamer hadn't popped.

If Mac was in there, he wasn't very warm.

Jack and Archer One – and the guy's name was actually Sterling, and he was dark-haired, so at least it was a callsign Jack could remember – had actually agreed almost immediately on tactics. The two politie vans were a distraction to get them close enough to the building to breach. It didn't guarantee they wouldn't get hit, but it _would_ saturate the area with moving targets and make it a lot harder for a single sniper to respond.

Archer and his three guys were going in the north entrance. Jack and his team were going to check the Beamer, then proceed to the east entrance. There would always be a target in motion to keep their sniper off-balance until they penetrated the building. After that, securing hostages was the primary objective.

To be effective, they needed to be very, very fast.

So Jack didn't wait. He immediately left his second cover and sprinted the fifteen yards between it and the Beamer, right in the open. Behind him, he heard Tunne swear – not on the radio, but the Green Beret didn't need it to be heard – and Jack ignored him. He was running a zigzag, and if the sniper hadn't taken the opportunity to try for him earlier, he wasn't the man's target.

Jack rolled the last few feet, coming up by the front passenger tire and putting the engine block between him and the building. It was a diesel, so it would be hard to blow the fuel tank, but even a BMW was still shitty cover. Cars were basically empty space with a couple pieces of tin foil between you and a bullet.

Dalton glanced back at his previous cover, finding a sliver of Saito's face peeking out, also around the front of the car, also taking advantage of the engine. The man didn't look happy.

Jack shrugged, then reached up for the doorhandle, and Saito brought up his rifle to cover him.

Dalton pulled the passenger door open, rolling under it, and found the cabin of the car was empty. From his vantage point, the trunk release was readily visible, and Jack crawled into the car and pulled it. He heard and felt the trunk pop, then eased back down to the pavement, and crept along the bottom of the car.

Once he got to the back, he hesitated. He told himself it was because, if he was the sniper, he'd wait for this moment. For the enemy to pop up and look into the trunk, and find one of his fallen comrades. Then he'd take the shot.

His radio popped. "This is Archer One. We are breaching, over."

There was a muffled bang near the building, and the sound of glass breaking, and Jack used the distraction and the muzzle of his rifle to ease the trunk fully open. Then he popped up, just a second, and peeked in.

 _Please don't be dead, brother. Please don't be dead._

He was already crouching back down by the rear tire before his brain was able to process the split second of what he'd seen. A darkly upholstered trunk. A black duffel, too small to contain a body. A spare tire. A splash of bright yellow –

Wrapper. Plastic wrapper from an ice cream.

No body. No blood. No stench of death.

Mac wasn't in there.

No one was.

. . . so why the hell was the car the brightest blip on their radar . . .?

Across the pavement from him, Jack watched Saito sprint for the Beamer, utilizing the same zig-zag running pattern he had, and the smaller Japanese agent slammed back-first into the side of the old BMW, rifle at the ready. He took two quick breaths, to replace the oxygen he'd just burned, and then gave Jack a cool look.

"So . . . we good now, Duke?"

The Duke – John Wayne. Saito had called him that the first time they'd met. Kinda like this, backs against a car, actually, where he'd been taking cover not from bullets, but from blades. He'd ticked off a small branch of the Yakuza – more like one of those twiggy suckers the tree itself didn't even like - and Saito and a few of his men had dropped by to lend him a hand.

Calling him John Wayne wasn't a term of endearment. Saito was telling him he thought Jack was being unnecessarily reckless.

He simpered at the other agent. "We're good."

Mac wasn't in the car. Which meant Mac wasn't dead. Or at the very least, he wasn't dead _here._ With that potential disaster temporarily averted, the next priority was to get ahold of Aydin's man as quickly as possible, before the asshole did something inconsiderate like get himself killed.

Saito gave him a look that clearly said he wasn't completely convinced that Jack's head was back on straight, but then both men popped up, one over the hood and the other over the trunk, and prepared to lay down cover fire as Tunne made the same sprint.

But not a bullet was fired. Not one. Even suppressed, at this distance they would have heard _something_.

If this guy was sniping, he was doing a piss-poor job of it.

The second Tunne hit the BMW, Jack was off, and Saito was right on his six. Jack worked his way quickly towards the foot of the building.

The entrance on the east side was almost all glass. Typically that wouldn't be particularly desirable – the enemy could see you coming - but at least Jack would be able to see any blatant traps, and bonus, he could shoot the glass out instead of having to blow the door like Harlan's men had. Since they breached first, it wasn't like he had to be quiet.

As soon as he shined his tac light on the glass double doors, he knew he didn't want to mess with them. There was a chain looping the two, but there was way too much slack in it. Hell, he could have pulled open one of the doors and slipped through, beer gut and all. Without missing a beat, Jack shot out the floor the ceiling window in the frame two sections from the doors, and then he was through.

No one was in the small reception area, and a quick glance at the double doors showed some kind of crude IED – honestly, it looked a little like something Mac would cook up. Two upended cleaning supply bottles in a plastic planter, and what looked like a flash bang balanced above it, waiting for someone to rattle the chains.

 _Gotta do better than that, turkey._

Saito was right behind him, covering the main hallway, and Tunne joined them before Jack was able to finish nudging the chemical soup safely away from any ignition sources. At his nod John checked the stairwell door, and Jack keyed his radio.

"Castle, Archer, this is Archer Five. Carriage is empty. We've breached the east entrance, we are oscar mike to the third floor, over."

There was an immediate response. "Roger, Archer Five. Confirmed the carriage is empty."

Honestly, if they had a castle and a carriage, they should have been fucking knights instead of archers, but this wasn't his fairy tale. And Castle, while it might be Command Ops, wasn't _his_ Ops. Wolff and his crew were running this show, not Matty. Nothing he could do about the stupid callsigns.

Besides, Jack was now one hundred percent certain his princess was in another castle.

Tunne glanced their way. "Looks clear." He waited for Jack and Saito to take their positions, then pressed down on the levered handle and threw the door wide.

Jack heard something hit the back of the door before glass shattered, and all three of them ducked away. There was no boom, but his tac light picked up a yellowish-green mist starting to rise up from behind the door, and Jack immediately held his breath. John reached out and yanked the door closed, and all three of them backed off at least ten feet before any of them took a tentative breath.

There was just the slightest whiff of tang in the air, and Saito grabbed Tunne by the vest and tugged him around. "You good? You get any on you?"

John tried peering over his own shoulder, even as he was spun. "Nah, don't think so. Smelled like bleach –"

"Chlorine gas," Jack growled. "East stairwell's out." Then he keyed his radio. "Archer Archer, be advised we've got handyman specials on the doors on the east side. East stairwell contains gas, over."

Archer One was already in the building, and if his team had encountered the same, they should've already reported it. Which meant the north side – the best entrance from an offensive standpoint – hadn't been similarly boobytrapped.

Which wasn't good. Aydin's guy _wanted_ them on the north side.

They jogged from the little reception area into the elevator bay – power had been cut before the helo landed, so Jack wasn't worried about the cameras – and surveyed the first floor. Mostly closed doors, with offices on the outer wall. The way the building was set up, the elevators ran in a long hallway east to west, and the north and south sides were only reachable through locked doors.

The west stairwell would likely be similarly treated, encouraging them to take the path of least resistance – the already breached north side.

Jack decided to be contrary, and drew his sidearm, 'unlocking' the door towards the south side. Then he pulled it open to reveal a short hallway opening onto a cube farm.

Saito moved past him, quickly clearing the doorways on the right and left, and Jack watched the lobby while John followed. Both of them were in the main cube farm by the time Jack caught up. Nothing seemed out of place. No sign of a struggle, no papers on the floor. Just an office building, empty for the day.

Jack's radio popped. "Castle, Archer, be advised, we have reached the third floor. No sign of hostages yet. Over."

Saito kept his eyes on the ground, watching for traps, and Jack covered their rear as they made their way directly towards the south stairwell. It was mainly for the employees, and because it was in a secured section of the building, it was unlocked. This time John jiggled the handle before he opened the door.

Nothing happened.

The stairwell was almost pitch black and seemed empty, and Saito moved in after John opened the door, proceeding halfway up the first stairwell, looking straight up. When he stopped moving, Jack thought he could still hear something else shifting.

Almost at the same moment, Saito held up his left hand in a fist.

 _Hold._

Jack and John froze, and then John silently caught the closing door with the heel of his boot. He and Jack looked at each other, then back up at Saito, who cocked his head. After a few beats, he continued up the stairs, only the fabric of his pants making any sound.

Whatever was above them, it was louder, and the same quality. Fabric shifting.

Saito made it to the landing, rifle and eyes up the middle of the stairwell, and without shifting his gaze he gave a tight nod. John eased the door closed while Jack crept up the stairwell. They regrouped on the landing to the second story.

Whatever was making noise, it was definitely in the stairwell with them. Now that they were closer, Jack thought he could make out muffled breathing.

It sounded frightened.

Saito continued up the stairs, taking each one carefully, trying to get a visual up through the middle of the stairwell. Whatever it was he finally got a glimpse of, he didn't like, because he threw out a stiff hand, signaling them to stop, then he quietly tucked his rifle to his back and reached up for the railing above him, on the next set of stairs.

He leapt up between the two sets of stairs like a freakin' ninja, keeping to the outside of the upper set of stairs as he climbed them as far as he could. Once he was mostly up the second set, he eased himself over the bannister, and Jack heard the low hum of his voice, speaking soothingly.

There was a curious snap, then the sound of creaking wood, and a smothered cry. Then silence.

Jack was about to call up when Saito's voice floated down to them softly. "Clear."

Jack hurried up to the landing, and the only reason he noticed it was because he was taking the stairs two at a time, and the sole of his boot encountered something in mid-air with a slight tension to it. He glanced down, but couldn't even see the cord against the black plastic guard that covered the front edge of the step.

A trip wire. Elastic, too, like the kind of cord you'd find inside a badge reel.

Once on the landing, he could see up the rest of the stairs. There was a chair near the edge, containing a frightened looking blonde woman who was duct taped to it within an inch of her life. Saito had pulled a tac knife and was cutting her loose, and he barely glanced their way as Jack finished climbing the stairs.

On the second to the top stair, he saw more of the black cord, now slack, wrapped around most of a yellow number two pencil. It wasn't hard to figure out.

Hostage in chair, chair on the edge of the stairs, leg of chair balanced on pencil. Pull the cord, pull the pencil, hostage and chair tip down the stairs. It probably wouldn't have killed her, but it certainly would have broken a few bones, not to mention donkey konged them when they tried to catch her.

And given the Turk an audible warning, that the south stairwell was breached.

Jack could tell that had occurred to Saito, because once he got her legs and arms free, he put a hand on her shoulder and held a finger to his lips, and waited until he got a jerky nod before he carefully peeled the tape off her mouth. She reached up to help, and he let her.

"Do you speak English?"

The blonde licked her lips, then winced, and opened her mouth to speak. Saito held up a hand.

"Englisch sprichst?"

She silently shook her head. Saito gave her a quick smile and moved smoothly into German. Jack had to remind himself that eastern Europe was Saito and John's stomping ground, and Saito probably spoke more languages than just about any other agent Phoenix had. He knew enough Dutch to understand the gist of what Saito was telling her, and she nodded stiltedly and obediently pulled off her high heels.

After he'd instructed her to get out – as quickly and quietly as she could – Saito stepped back and Jack gave the woman a charming smile as she hurried by. Hopefully she'd put her shoes back on before she encountered the glass.

Jack keyed his radio again. "Castle, be advised we are sending out a hostage. Repeat, we are sending out a hostage, female, blonde, out the east entrance. Break. Archer Archer, be advised we are on the third floor, south stairwell. Over."

Nothing like popping out downrange of guys you'd never worked with before while creeping through a dark building. "Stay low," he muttered, then ever so slowly pulled open the door.

Saito was looking through the crack, and he signaled Jack to stop. The tac knife came out again, cutting something else, and then Saito nodded, and Jack pulled the door open all the way.

This was a simple string tied to a stack of painstakingly balanced garbage. Just a noisemaker. Again, it reminded him of something Mac would do.

The third floor looked a lot like the first, but the cubes were bigger and nicer. The execs lived up here, and it showed. Big glass offices lined the outer wall of the building, and there was almost enough ambient light from the streetlamps outside that they didn't need their tac lights at all.

There was no movement or sound, and Saito clicked off his tac light and slipped into the room, hugging the wall. John followed, also killing his light, and Jack brought up the rear, doing the same.

They had one shooter and at least nine hostages, and the floor looked positively deserted. The north stairwell hadn't contained a hostage or Archer would have declared it, and even if the east stairwell did, chlorine gas was heavy, and would stay at the bottom of the stairwell. They could either move around the perimeter and try to grab hostages on the outlay, or they could move in and figure out where the hell that Turk was before Sterling Archer shot him.

His radio popped. "Archer Archer, be advised, the isotope tracker puts your target near the southeast corner of the building. There are at least six hostages in his immediate area."

Finally. Decent intel.

Soundlessly the three Phoenix agents crept into the cube farm, heading for the east side, and they'd gone maybe ten yards before there was a small explosion, from the north. It was big enough that Jack felt it through the floor, but didn't see any evidence of it. Dalton brought them up short, and then dared to peek up over the cube farm walls.

And caught a glimpse of a shadow, moving quickly and silently down an aisle, not twenty yards away.

It was impossible to tell in the dark if he was friendly, but Jack was betting no. He eased himself out of sight, then caught John's eye. He pointed at his own eyes with two fingers, then mimed someone running, and pointed to where he figured the guy would pop up. John gave him a sharp nod and started immediately in that direction. He tapped Saito on the back as he passed, and his partner fell in behind him.

They were on catching duty, which meant Jack was pitching.

He circled back around his right, finding the beginning of the aisle, and peered around the corner. Nothing. No movement, no sign of anyone. His radio was silent, which was also not a good sign. He wasn't about to ask for a sitrep when he was probably on top of this guy, and so Jack eased himself carefully down the cubicle aisle, and hoped Archer had enough sense not to shoot his ass.

The cubes had doors that opened across from one another, meaning he had to choose which one to look into, and expose his back to the other at the same time. Not awesome. And there was no telling if his prey had doubled back. Jack went as quickly as he dared, and two cubicles in, the floor was twitching.

Male, early thirties, in trousers and a polo shirt. His hands and feet were bound, and his eyes were almost as round as his glasses.

Jack held up a finger to his lips, and the man on the floor nodded emphatically. The absolutely incredulous look on his face when Jack just left him there was almost enough to make the agent smile.

 _Dude, you are safer on the floor than just about anywhere else._

By the time he'd hit the halfway point, he'd found two more hostages, both male, also bound, and also on the floor. There was a four way intersection that Jack stopped just short of, and across his own aisle, John appeared. They regarded one another for a moment, then John gestured to his right. Jack tilted his head to his left, just to confirm, and got a nod.

Saito was at the end of that aisle.

Jack put his back to that side, then ever so slowly approached the intersection, trying to get eyes around the corner without exposing himself. He heard a faint noise, then his radio popped.

"Jack, you have a friendly approaching your three o'clock. Archer, I'm at your twelve o'clock, you've got friendlies at your three and nine. Archer Archer, I got no one in the intersection, or on the south perimeter."

It was Saito. The only one far enough away to get away with whispering.

Jack sent up a silent thank you that he was sure Saito could hear, then ever so slowly stuck his head into the intersection.

If the positions Saito had called out were correct, their man had either made it to one of the other perimeters, or he was in one of the cubes, but he wasn't in any of the aisles.

Sure enough, Archer One was on Jack's three o'clock. The two men gave each other a nod, then Sterling clocked John. Sterling continued his straight path towards Saito, and Jack moved on towards John.

He counted another two hostages, male, dressed in business casual, and Jack started to get a sinking feeling.

They had no picture of this guy. It was either doppel-Mac – who surely would have been smart enough to ditch the wig by now, but at the very least was Mac's build – or the driver. But none of the politie cams had gotten a look at the guy's face. The motel footage would have, if the camera in the manager's office hadn't been shit. Both Mouse and Jill were working on cleaning up the image, but right now they didn't have a decent pic.

The Turk had hidden himself in with the hostages.

Since he knew they were there, Jack didn't see a need for the strict noise discipline. "He's hidin' in plain sight, boys. Let's split the hostages into four groups. Keep your eyes peeled."

Once they got the hostages isolated, no matter how scared they were, one of them would point him out. And he knew it. He didn't wait for that to happen. Jack was cutting his second hostage loose when a gunshot rang out, loud in the enclosed space, and he ducked his head back out in the aisle to see one of Sterling's guys falling back.

After that, all hell broke loose.

Hostages that had already been freed started running for the exits. Sterling headed for his downed man. Somehow the Turk had gotten out of the cube – probably vaulted the back wall of it when everyone had hit the deck – and there were three more shots fired along the north perimeter of the cube farm. One sidearm, two from a rifle.

Dude didn't have a rifle, just a handgun. That's why he hadn't sniped them.

Jack sprinted for the north stairwell, figuring that was where he was headed, and a shadow in business casual cut across the passageway towards the door.

"Drop it! Drop it now!"

The shadow spun and Jack tagged him high on the right shoulder. The Turk still managed to send a bullet at him, close enough that Jack felt the heat of it pass by his left ear, and then he heard two more shots, and the Turk went down like a sack of rocks.

 _Shit!_ "Cease fire! Cease fire!" he bellowed, sprinting for the guy. He was wearing street clothes. No vest.

If they killed him, they couldn't get anything out of him.

Dalton hurried up to the downed man, kicking his firearm out of reach, and then stepped on his left shoulder, rolling him onto his back. Both rounds had hit him, upper back. The man was still alive – just – and the two of them stared at each for a moment.

Then the Turk gave him a bloody grin, and it clicked.

It was Kidney Puncher. From back at the courthouse. The guy who'd nearly gotten him in a chokehold before he'd broken the dude's thumb.

His left hand wasn't wrapped, and Jack used his right foot to crush down on it. Wiped the smile right off the asshole's face.

"Where's the colonel? Huh?" Jack ground his boot into the guy's palm and extracted a resentful moan. "Where's your little buddy from the motel?"

Several other someones approached them, but Jack ignored them, never letting up the pressure. "I know you understand me. Imma put you in a _world_ of pain, dude, this is just the warm-up."

The Turk hissed out a growl, then coughed. When he spoke, his voice was heavily accented.

"You do not . . . have the time, _sican_ American."

It had been a hot minute since the last time he'd spoken any Turkish, but Jack was pretty sure the guy had just called him a rat.

It was way more insulting in Turkish than in English.

"Listen up, _pislik_ , I can keep you alive however long I need to."

If the Turk was surprised at the use of his own language, it didn't show. Instead, he coughed again, then spat blood at him.

Jack growled, and put all his weight on the guy's left hand. He felt bones breaking through the sole of the boot, and this time, the Turk yelled like it actually hurt.

"Where's Riley? Huh? The other agent you took?"

"Dalton-" This voice was accented as well, Dutch, and Jack ignored him too.

The Turk turned his cry into a laugh, and from there into wet coughing. Much as Jack didn't want to admit it, the Turk was right. He wasn't going to live long enough to talk.

"I am . . . glad I did not kill you. The colonel . . . is so looking . . . forward to it."

Jack leaned closer to the laboring soldier. "Not as much as I am. How's about you stop stallin' and tell me where I can find him."

The soldier choked on another laugh, then gave a couple weak coughs, and his head rolled to the right as he finally lost consciousness. Crushing his hand didn't bring him around, and Jack only stepped off the guy when someone tugged him backwards. He nearly threw an elbow before he realized it was John, and one of Sterling's guys took his place over the Turk, trying to assess the damage.

Guy'd be dead before they could get him down the stairs.

"Sonuva _bitch_!" Jack snarled, yanking himself out of John's grip, and then he ripped the radio out of his ear, tired of Castle's squawking for a sitrep. They had nothing.

They had _nothing._

Police were starting to swarm the building now that the shooter was neutralized, and Jack shoved his way past them down the stairs on the north side. Once he was clear of the building, he finally felt his phone vibrating in his thigh pocket, but Jack didn't bother to grab it. Whoever it was gave up after a few rings.

He didn't care. He stalked around the corner of the building, into the parking lot, straight for the BMW. It was right where he'd left it, trunk still open, and Jack tucked his rifle to his back angrily, yanking a flashlight from his vest.

Behind him, he heard Saito, talking quietly. Whoever had given up calling him had obviously moved on. Matty, then.

Too bad they didn't have a single goddamn thing to tell her.

Jack let the other agent handle it, and systematically began tearing the car apart.

The duffel in the trunk was definitely a go bag – the olive drab tee shirt and khaki tac pants the guy'd been wearing earlier were in it, along with a secondary firearm – nine mil – and several spare mags. Other than that, he didn't have much in the way of tactical gear. There was a thigh holster in there, his combat boots, a toiletries kit, a bare bones trauma kit.

Toiletries looked local, probably purchased in Europe in any old drug store. Trauma kit was Dutch army surplus.

Jack growled and moved into the main cabin of the Beamer, slipping into the driver's seat. There was a paper map of Germany in the console, folded open to expose the roads between Münster and Cologne, but nothing was circled. Jack spread the map wide, but there was no writing on it. Guys were too careful for that.

There was a stained popsicle stick in the cupholder – from the ice cream the guy'd eaten – and a clear little bottle of hand sanitizer. Something about it looked familiar, and Jack picked it up.

It was Purell, not a European brand. Same kind the Phoenix handed out like candy. There were probably fifty of 'em in the men's locker room –

And he usually pocketed one for his go bag. They were the perfect size.

So did Mac.

Son of a bitch.

Jack turned, unsurprised to find Saito standing at the door, watching him, and he wordlessly held up the bottle. It took the other agent a couple seconds to put it together.

That was why the strongest isotope signal was in the car.

Mac had put the tracking solution in the hand sanitizer. Probably in the hopes he could tag multiple people. And he probably also tagged himself.

No guarantee that he'd gotten the colonel, but one of those weak-ass signals out there was definitely Mac.

-M-

"Show me the map again."

Along the bank of monitors, the now-familiar radiation map of Europe popped up beside her, and Matty actually swiveled the chair, rather than her neck, to see it. She was getting stiff as hell, and not for the first time, she wished this op was going down from the War Room, and she actually had the tools she needed to get the job done.

She'd been spoiled by Phoenix, and by DHS before that. She was too accustomed to having all the information, exactly when she wanted it. There were too many people she couldn't call, too many things that required her clearance to execute and override.

 _You got the same box of tools you always have, darlin'. Maybe it's not your favorite mallet, but it'll do the job._

Her father's wisdom had a way of ringing true in nearly any situation, even when she wasn't trying to nail a pair of shoes back together.

And in a way, that was _exactly_ what she was trying to do.

Knowing what they knew now – that the tracking solution had been applied via hand sanitizer, meaning it had been absorbed into the target's skin, and that Mac had almost certainly tagged himself that way – it meant that some of those little mustard yellow smudges on the map were almost guaranteed to be Aydin's men. It also meant one of them could be MacGyver.

"You should have it now, director."

"I do," she confirmed. The monitor bank here wasn't touch screens, one more inconvenience in a slew of irritations, and Matty fought with the trackpad a moment before she just gave up. "Show me all the signals that haven't moved in the last two days."

Back in LA, Jill did as she was instructed, and eight sites in the Netherlands and Germany were highlighted.

"Harlan, have the local cops completed searches of all those areas?"

There was only the briefest of pauses. "Seven of them. The eighth is in a swamp, and requires special equipment."

Jill helpfully highlighted that particular area, almost as far north as you could get and still remain in the Netherlands, and Matty went ahead and asked the question that needed to be asked.

"How difficult would it be to dump a body out there?"

She saw Bozer in her peripheral vision, two seats away, glance in her direction, but she ignored him, keeping her focus on the camera.

"It's fairly remote. If they were on their way to the North Sea, it might make sense, but we've seen no significant movement in that area since we began surveillance." Wolff's tone didn't indicate any surprise. He was thinking along the same lines she was.

"With respect, director," Jill broke in hesitantly, "even shallow immersion in water or mud would make the isotope undetectable."

Meaning if Mac had been killed and dumped in a swamp, they'd have no signal at all. Just as they wouldn't if he was in a concrete basement. Or a shallow grave.

Hopefully he knew that, and hadn't gotten himself into any of those situations.

"Can you show me which signals have moved in the past twenty-four hours?"

The image changed, this time showing smears in terms of faded orange and brighter orange. It was discouragingly busy. "I've been working on isolating certain characteristics of the isotope signal to see if I can uniquely identify each one, but –"

"Too many variables," Mila, Harlan's head analyst, jumped in. "We too have been trying. We've also tried to correct for environmental interference, such as wind and weather patterns that naturally shift contaminated materials around the continent."

The 'corrected' map looked like someone's finger-painting three year old had gotten hold of it. Matty studied the image with a frown.

"Get rid of the satellite details. I want to see roads and basic topography."

If they were moving, they were moving along a road or some kind of path. Getting rid of all the other details – the cities, the forests, the large buildings – made things a little clearer, but not much.

It was Europe. There weren't too many places that didn't have roads. Fortunately they knew the starting point.

Rotterdam.

The first problem was the fact that none of the smears were all that near it. She ignored the orange that was near Nordhorn – they already knew who that was, and while the signal had been weak enough to be temporarily hidden in the city, the next time it showed up was where Harlan had dispatched the tac team.

The deputy director had two agents down; one hit in the collarbone, the other in the leg. Saito had told her Aydin's man had taken a shot at Dalton but missed. The dead Turk had been positively identified as one of the soldiers at the courthouse, which could be where he'd encountered Mac and his sanitizer, and she could assume Jill was going to scrub his signal from any further maps.

"So how the hell did they get to Germany without getting picked up before then?" she murmured aloud.

"We weren't scanning at this level of sensitivity until – Agent Dalton requested it," Mila said, with only a very faint catch. "Your analysts were able to filter a great deal of the environmental radiation out of the images, otherwise they would have been useless."

Looking at the distance, if they had left Rotterdam and headed straight into Germany, unless they were on bicycles they would have gotten to Nordhorn _long_ before this morning. They hadn't gone straight there. They were planting evidence off to the north, as if to focus investigative efforts away from the south, but there were very few blips to the south. The southmost one was in Nijmegen, which wasn't much more south than Rotterdam itself, and the southernmost hit in Germany was one of the new ones, near Düsseldorf.

There were two highways that would get them there, hopping the border, but the Düsseldorf smear wasn't near the junction of those main thoroughfares. Maybe they'd hit the back roads?

And if the object was to plant evidence to the north, to make them _think_ they'd taken the colonel south, then that faint little blip near Düsseldorf was just another false trail, and she should actually be looking north.

There was a smear up north quite close to Arnhem, near the Rhine, and she tapped it, forgetting for a moment that she couldn't expand the image. "Tell me about Arnhem."

"The hit was near Plato Woods B.V. It's a lumber yard and shipping depot." Jill didn't even hesitate. "I looked into that one, director, but I'm pretty sure it's a false positive. The radiation signature there just showed up late this morning, and it's very faint. It's probably due to contaminated lumber brought in from Russia. The EU rules allow free travel of goods across the borders, and a significant amount of illegal wood from contamination zones is making its way to the market."

There was a very faint smear more than halfway between that point and Essen, back in Germany, and the only reason it caught her eye was the straight shot from Arnhem down the Autobahn, route 3.

Which fit Jill's theory of contaminated wood being trucked into the EU.

But was also headed, fairly directly, to that smear in Düsseldorf. Matty looked at the highways. It would be easy for someone to get from Düsseldorf to Essen, barely half an hour's drive. Regardless whether the colonel was with either of those paths or not, the more of his men they could question, the easier this scavenger hunt was going to get.

"Harlan, how far is the tactical team from Essen?"

The deputy director hesitated. "Roughly thirty minutes by air. However –"

"Yes, I know. Two of your team have been injured." Now it was her turn to pause. "Deputy Director, I think we can get two of the colonel's men when they rendezvous in Essen. This data's already half an hour old, so we can assume, if the blip on Route 3 and the one near Düsseldorf continue at their current speed, that they'll be there within the hour."

It wasn't her tac team, even if it was now comprised of a majority of her agents. But even two men down they were still better equipped to handle the Turkish special forces than the German police.

"And are you suggesting that we lead my colleagues in Germany to believe that this intelligence came from the suspect we confronted – and killed - in Dortmund?"

Even as she looked at the map, Dortmund was also reasonably close to Essen. Wolff seemed to realize it too, because she heard him sigh.

If they were right and there were two of Aydin's men about to meet in Essen, and it devolved into a gunfight in the streets, German special intelligence would be extremely displeased that they hadn't been involved. Harlan had already been working through colleagues he trusted in Germany, so she wasn't worried about a double agent leaking the information back to Aydin.

She was worried about missing the opportunity altogether.

"I think they're going to discover pretty quickly that their colleague isn't joining them," Matty said quietly. "Sooner or later they're going to realize that we're able to track them, and they're going to scatter again. If they're all converging on Essen, it could mean they're regrouping around the colonel himself. We may only get one shot at this."

"Ah. So we simply do not give the Germans time to consult with us," Wolff replied, his tone dry. "Only to respond."

Pretty much. They needed support, not questions. "It's not my preference, but it's my head on the chopping block here, Harlan," she reminded him. "Once we have the colonel in custody, the op – and the US involvement – will come out."

"Germany is not your next door neighbor," Wolff countered. "Your agents have been playing fast and loose in countries in which you have little responsibility. Without a specific location, my peers will be hesitant to commit resources."

Which was exactly why they couldn't be asked to help – they needed to be told. That being said, at the moment Matty had zero authority to command Harlan Wolff, or any other intelligence organization in Europe for that matter.

But the US State Department did.

"Put our team in the air, and I'll have your rendezvous location by the time they land."

Harlan seemed to consider that, and abruptly there was the sound of bustle and radio chatter in the background. "If it'll take half an hour to get there, and they'll be there in an hour, we gotta go now. The helo's refueled and ready, and Sterling's gettin' antsy." The voice was unmistakably Jack's.

"Agent Sterling is more unhappy than you know," Wolff responded immediately. "I will remind you, Agent Dalton, you and the other Phoenix agents are operating under his command."

The background noise had temporarily disappeared as Jack had muted his phone, and popped back on the line immediately. "Yessir." For once, Jack had stowed the sarcasm.

Up on the monitors, she glanced at the Dutch war room, unsurprised to see Harlan looking directly at her. She knew what he was asking, and she frowned, but then nodded her head, hiding the stiffness the best she could.

Saito said Jack was on edge – not that they needed to pull him out of the field. Not yet, anyway. But Harlan was clearly aware of – and unimpressed with – Jack's style when it came to getting intelligence out of enemies. He needed to toe the line, and she'd given Agent Tunne permission to take matters into his own hands if he had to.

She couldn't afford to have Dalton going off the reservation any more than she could afford to be wrong about Aydin's guys in Essen. Harlan's patience with her was running very thin.

Wolff gave the camera a long, flat look. "Very well. Agent Sterling, proceed to Essen. We'll liaise with German authorities and acquire backup and landing coordinates while you're in transit. We'll brief you in twenty minutes."

The background noise of an active police investigation came back on the line. "Yes sir." Matty recognized the commander of Archer unit from earlier. Nothing about the man sounded 'antsy'.

"They'll be touching down around 0400 local time. Civilian traffic will be down to a minimum, but a helicopter will be pretty obvious. We'll need German SWAT on the ground to herd Aydin's men to a less residential location," Matty said, as much for her people as for Harlan. "Bozer, call up your good friend Director Bosch. We'll need a favor."

In her peripheral vision, she saw Bozer hesitate, and she swiveled the chair further, pinning him with a look. "Regretting telling her off?"

The young man blinked at her, his hands hovering over his phone. "Uh . . . actually, no," he admitted, looking surprised at himself. "Naw, I still think she deserved it."

Matty hid a smile. "Well, put on your big boy pants and convince her to give us a hand. Remind her it's her ass in a sling, too."

That task delegated, Matty ran down her mental rolodex of acquaintances in Germany. "Saito, John, text any local contacts while you're in the air. See if anyone's heard anything."

"Yes ma'am," Saito replied, and she heard several phones drop from the call.

"All right. We've got a cabin in the woods and a crappy motel as places we know they chose to leave evidence. Do we know how they made the reservations?"

"They didn't reserve the cabin, they just commandeered it," Jill answered quickly. "The motel reservation was called in from a burner phone at eight pm local time the night they supposedly stayed. The manager left the key in a box and texted them the combination before he left for the night."

So not helpful. Matty used the keyboard in front of her to pull up a detailed map of Essen. "Do we know of any Turkish expats in the area?"

There was a brief pause. ". . . we do," Mila answered, but she sounded uncertain. "It will take me a moment to access the data."

". . . uh, Matty?"

"Spit it out, Specs," she ordered, remembering to take a sip of the stupid electrolyte fluid when Patience floated into view beside her.

". . . Jack just texted me that he missed a call."

Her first instinct was to remind the analyst that she wasn't Dalton's personal secretary. Then again, he was in a damn helicopter right now and even if he'd answered it, he wouldn't have been able to hear a thing. "And?"

"It's a German number. It . . . looks like they're calling again." She paused for half a breath. "The, uh, interim director has me routing Jack and Riley's phones through the Phoenix switchboard –

"Just answer it."

Matty started studying the map she had pulled up, looking at where the Autobahn intersected with Route 2. An empty petrol station, a rest area –

There was a quiet click as someone else was joined to the conference line. "Riley, you're on with Matty." Jill spoke so quickly the words almost ran together.

There was a very brief pause. " . . . Matty?"

The voice sounded muffled, and a little out of breath, but it was unmistakably Riley Davis.

-M-

"Riley! Thank god. Where are you?"

She kinda wanted to know that herself. "Uh, a dingy-ass office above a lock. The signs are in German, I think –" She turned back to the grizzled older man, watching her dubiously through the glass window separating the office from the actual lock operating room.

Riley gave him an apologetic look. "Dude, where are we? Uhhh . . . wir ist . . . this?"

"Wo sind wir," a male voice corrected from the phone, and Riley immediately repeated it.

The lock operator gave her a strange look, then rattled off something she didn't understand. Fortunately, he'd had to yell it to be heard over the lock motor operating, and whoever else was on the phone with Jill and Matty could hear. Riley was frankly amazed the ancient cordless phone was working at all, much less giving them decent audio.

"Lock number four. She's in Düsseldorf." The voice was accented, and oddly familiar.

Riley paused a second. " . . . is that . . . Deputy Director Harlan Wolff?" Him being involved in the search for Aydin made total sense, since Aydin had been on trial in the Hague, and Mac had said he thought they were still in the Netherlands -

"Yes, Riley, you've got us both. Jack and a tac team are en route. Are you okay? Are you safe?"

Jack.

She'd dialed his phone, and kinda expected to hear his voice, but Matty and the deputy director of Dutch intelligence were a decent consolation prize. Just knowing he was on his way released a little of the cramping in her gut.

As for being safe, she was safer than Mac, but as soon as the colonel realized she was AWOL, he was going to send someone to tie up loose ends. "Uh, probably not for long." She hurried out of the office back into the chilly night air, ignoring how cold the concrete was on her bare feet, trying to get eyes on the boat. "I just got off a river cruise with Colonel Aydin and thirty of his closest friends. They've got the crew hostage, Mac thinks there may be passengers on it too. If they haven't figured out we're loose yet, they will soon."

"Did you say Mac?" Matty's voice was tinny on the crappy handset.

"Yeah. He's still on the boat." Riley frowned – the ship had already sailed around a bend out of sight. "He ditched me and pulled his 'I have an idea' schtick, so you should probably get that backup here sooner rather than later."

That fucking moron was going to get himself killed. If the colonel didn't murder him, she sure as hell was going to.

"We've already rerouted them from Essen," Wolff announced. "They're about twenty-five minutes from your coordinates."

Riley shook her head, then realized she still had the stupid hijab on. "That's not gonna cut it. He's gonna need help way before that."

"Riley, you're sure the colonel's on board?"

Whatever relief she'd felt at hearing that Jack was on his way evaporated into the air with her breath. " . . . yeah," she finally growled. "I'm sure." She started to pace along the top of the lock, just to get rid of some of the nervous energy, and had to remind herself to stay close enough to the office that the cordless phone wouldn't lose signal. "So's Kadir Hakan, and whoever else is left of his crack team of Maroon Berets."

"We've dispatched local police and ambulances to the lock," another familiar, heavily accented voice announced, and Riley felt a tight little smile pull at the split in her bottom lip.

"Agent Visser." Mila was the analyst she'd worked with to put all the video and audio evidence back together during their last little trip through Amsterdam. She was pretty bad-ass. They'd exchanged a couple emails over the evidence Mila had collected on the Organization, and it was reassuring to know she'd been involved as well.

Between her and the Phoenix, Aydin was _so_ screwed.

"It's good to hear your voice, Agent Davis," Mila replied, and her relief sounded sincere.

Wolff refocused them all on the task at hand. "What are the offensive capabilities of the colonel's men?"

"Uh . . . we didn't see. Plenty of guns." That probably went without saying. "Mac was trying to get to the bridge and talk to the captain. They've been in control of the ship since . . . at least Tuesday."

"Get me satellite on that vessel. Do you know the name of it?"

The first part was not directed at her, but the second part seemed to be. "No. I was busy." Busy flipping off a certain blond idiot and trying to climb that stupid slippery ladder in a dress. Riley took the opportunity to rip the hijab off her head and drop it on the concrete, then stood on it to try to warm up her frigid feet.

"It's a pretty nice ship, though. Think old people river cruises. It was almost exactly the size of the lock, and was the last boat out." She peered over the edge of the dam into the concrete box that was just closing up around a boat, much smaller than theirs.

And then it occurred to her, quite suddenly, that she wasn't on the boat anymore.

She wasn't on the boat anymore.

All the adrenaline in her system seemed to just completely evaporate, and Riley put a steadying hand on the railing, surprised to find it shaking.

She wasn't on the boat anymore.

She wasn't a prisoner anymore.

It wasn't over over, but it was –

Was over. She could hear the sirens approaching, the cops and the ambulances well on their way. Mac would find some way to break the boat, the German authorities would force the colonel to surrender and release the crew, and Aydin would be back in prison before sunrise.

The conversation turned quickly to logistics – getting eyes on the boat, organizing German SWAT, notifying INTERPOL. All the crap she'd be doing if she had a laptop and a decent connection. Riley took a few steadying breaths and turned back for the office, wondering if maybe the old bearded guy in there might have a laptop he used to watch Netflix, or porn, or whatever you did when you were operating a lock at 3:30 in the morning, and she was surprised to see that he was still in the operating booth, peering at her through the glass. He had a cellphone to his ear.

Riley stared at him a second, and he ducked his head and hurried out of the booth.

A little bemused, she watched him tear through the office like someone had set it on fire, and he burst out the office door into the night, running as fast as his bowed legs would carry him towards the street end of the dam.

Riley watched him go, but he never looked back, and after a second, she stepped off the wadded up hijab and wandered suspiciously back towards the office. It was not, in fact, on fire, and she eyed the equipment a moment, expecting a dozen red flashing lights telling her the lock was about to explode or something.

But the operating booth was quiet. The lights were all green or yellow, but nothing seemed immediately broken. Along the back wall there _was_ a laptop, lid closed, and beside it was a laser printer that was almost as old as she was.

A piece of white paper – the only thing that was white in the room, which showed evidence of decades of indoor smoking – was lying on the floor, and Riley bent down, hissing when her hip complained, and plucked it up.

It was a bulletin from INTERPOL. The text was in German, but it was the picture that caught her attention.

. . . she looked completely stoned. Riley had absolutely no memory of posing for it. But there she was, in black and white, wearing a hijab and the same goddam black dress she was wearing right now, staring at the camera with the dead eyes of a suicide bomber.

" . . . uh, Matty?" she interrupted the chatter on the phone. ". . . we have a problem."

-M-

"What do you mean, you think someone called you in as a terrorist?"

Wolff glanced over at Mila, who was already on it, paging through the latest bulletins. Her eyes were flicking quickly across them, but when she seemed to suddenly focus, he knew she'd found it. He was at her shoulder in three long strides, and the woman in the photo was hardly recognizable as the beautiful, intelligent young analyst he remembered giving him an impish grin from inside his own data center.

The alert stated she was a suicide bomber. Her location had even been specified – Lock No. 4.

The bulletin authorized all German polizei to shoot on sight.

"This was planned," he said aloud, knowing the in-room microphones would pick him up. "The formatting of an INTERPOL bulletin is exact. This was prepared before today, but it lists her current location. Whoever issued this bulletin knows exactly where she is." He turned to Mila. "Find them. _Now_."

Apparently Director Webber also had access to INTERPOL bulletins, because she didn't ask him for it. "Every officer in Germany just got a copy of this. Can you recall it?"

"Not in time." Not for hours. It was one of the flaws of an otherwise excellent system. Harlan snapped his fingers at a male analyst to get his attention. "Have dispatch contact the closest polizei and call them off. Tell them it's one of our agents."

"If we can't recall it, we need to send out a correction. Jill –"

"Already on it, director –"

"How far out are the closest officers?"

" . . they're already here." It was Riley who spoke next, her voice strained. "They just pulled up."

 _Verdomme._

"Miss Davis, go to the innermost room of the lock office, and hide beneath the console. Make sure you are not visible to any windows." This was a bomb threat, so protocol would be to surround and attempt to find a sniping position, but they wouldn't breach the booth unless they had to. They were supposed to wait for SEK to arrive on scene.

"Dude, the whole damn place is windows!" Riley was starting to sound panicked. "They're already out of their cars – shit!"

There was a click on the line.

"Riley?" It was Webber. " . . . _Riley_!"

"She's disconnected," Webber's lead analyst confirmed in a small voice.

"Did you get the correction out?!"

"-working on it –"

A few cameras came up on the main screens, and Wolff studied them. One was a street cam, showing the intersection where the lock connected with the riverbank and the street beside it. The camera was across the street, but the two polizei cars, their lights flashing, were clearly visible. Both of them had their driver's doors open.

The officers were already on the dam.

The other view was of the lock itself, showing a small boat in the process of being raised. The camera was mounted on the corner of the operator's booth, and showed him nothing useful.

A glance over his shoulder confirmed that his analyst had his head down, speaking rapid-fire German, holding a copy of the bulletin in his hand. Dispatch could notify the next cops to arrive on scene, but they were minutes out.

If the German cops decided to be heroes, or feared the flooding at that hour of the morning, when so many people were sleeping in their homes –

Harlan watched the screens, waiting for another camera angle to pop up.

A satellite image was the next thing to resolve, showing him not only the lock, but the Rhine. It was all too easy to pick out the vessel Agent Davis had described. It was dark and clearly dead in the water, drifting at a slight angle back down the river, and the rear of the boat was wandering dangerously close to the shallows. It would likely ground itself before it re-encountered the lock.

To the west of it, there were two tiny dots on the dam, arms extended, advancing on the operator's booth.

He and Webber were sharing intelligence feeds, he knew she could see it as well.

And there was nothing either of them could do about it.

-M-

The helo settled in the middle of an intersection that was surrounded with emergency vehicles, and Jack was the first one out, squinting at the flashing lights as he sought out his target.

There were several ambulances lined up along the side of the road closest to the banks of the Rhine, but only one of them had people gathered around the back of it.

He headed directly for it.

The cops took one look at him, fully tacked up, and got the hell out of his way, but Jack still had to shoulder past a couple paramedics before he managed to clap eyes on the figure on the gurney. She was hunched over, arms wrapped around her chest, and he couldn't see her face at all. Her bare arms looked pale against the black fabric.

A medic was crouched on the floor of the ambulance in front of her, looking up at her face and trying to get her to talk, and when Jack hopped into the bus, the guy glanced his way. Riley's wildly unkempt hair twitched to the side, and he finally saw her eyes, surrounded by heavy, stylized eyeliner.

Then she was in his arms.

Jack tried to be gentle, but Riley seemed determined to squeeze his head right off the top of his neck, and he tucked her face against his shoulder and wrapped her up tight.

"Oh, baby, I gotcha, I gotcha . . ." For a long moment he just held her, it was Riley, it was his little girl, alive and well and trying not to sob into his neck. "Okay, you're okay, I'm right here. I gotcha."

It took her a minute, but gradually the stranglehold relaxed a little, and Jack smoothed her hair back, and turned until he could see her face. ". . . you been to a party or somethin'?"

She half-laughed, half-sobbed, and the eyeliner she was wearing didn't budge. ". . . I think it's Sharpie," she said thickly, sniffling and pulling away a little to wipe at her eyes. "I . . . uh, the black eye, couldn't figure out how else to hide it . . ."

This close to her, he could see it anyway, and the swelling on her left cheekbone. He let her settle back on the stretcher a little, still not completely releasing her, running his hands up and down her bare arms. He could see her sleeves had been ripped off, and the skirt was fairly short, with a chopped, ragged goth look to it, but the fabric itself was a familiar cotton/linen blend, and the cut of the collar, and the way it was fitted –

He'd seen enough of those dresses in Afghanistan and Iraq to last a lifetime. She was wearing an abaya. She'd ripped and snipped it to hell, but that's what it was.

Riley glanced down at herself. "I thought if I looked like a drunk from a party . . . I saw a pair of scissors, I just -"

Jack found himself nodding automatically, the relief finally rising up through his chest, almost suffocating him. "Yeah, yeah, good thinkin', Ri. Good thinkin'. You okay? You hurt?"

He could see the bruises on her arms, even with the goosebumps covering her, but she didn't flinch until he touched her right shoulder. "No, I'm fine. Just a little b-banged up." It was quick, maybe a little too quick, and she pulled away a little. The medic behind her chose that moment to put a blanket over her shoulders, and Jack pulled it forward and snugged it down over her.

"You sure?"

She nodded quickly. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Then Riley seemed to shake herself. "The boat – the colonel. Did you-"

He couldn't quite bring himself to stop messing with the front of the blanket, making sure she was all tucked up and safe. "Goin' now. Just wanted to make sure you were good."

"Mac – I left him on the ship-"

"I'll get him, Ri. Don't you worry." Jack gave her a full-beam grin, even if it was a little watery. "You two are gonna be the death of me, you know that -"

"Just – be careful-"

"Yeah, baby, I will." He pulled her in for another quick hug, then sucked in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, relishing the feeling of her hair, tickling his right ear. "They're gonna take you to get you checked out. I'm sending one of the guys with ya. No buts," he added, as he felt her stiffen a little. "I'll be back before you know it. Me _and_ Mac."

She pulled back, shaking her head, and her eyebrows were bunched for a fight. "No, Jack, I'm fine, I just need -"

"We just got you back, and I ain't takin' any chances." No way no how was she talking her way out of this. "Looks like some of the colonel's men were headed here into town even before you got loose. They already tried to kill you once tonight, and I sure as hell ain't givin' them another crack at it. Saito's gonna watch your back – you remember him, right?"

Riley's expression closed down further. "No, Jack, listen-"

"Matty's orders, kiddo. Get checked out. I'll be there soon as I can." He gave the blanket a final little tug and kissed her forehead, then stepped back, hopping out of the back of the ambulance. Saito was waiting, entertaining a couple of the paramedics to give them some privacy, and Jack gave him a nod.

That one gesture said everything necessary, and the Japanese agent returned it, with all the weight it deserved.

Then he turned on his heels in a quick spin, making sure Riley was still in the ambulance – and she was, which she wouldn't'a been if she'd failed to pass along some key piece of intel, which was the _only_ reason he'd even consider letting her stick around any longer than she absolutely needed to. She was a sitting duck out in a city block like this, and he knew damn well what kinda men they were up against.

Riley didn't look happy about it, but she was still sitting on the stretcher, and Jack completed the turn and jogged back across the street, towards the significantly expanded team Archer.

They still had Sterling and his remaining uninjured guy, and him and John, and they'd added eight of Germany's finest. Sterling was mostly through the briefing, and Jack tucked his radio back into his ear and took his position by John, who blindly passed him his weapon.

The briefing was in German, and Jack gave Tunne a quick sideways glance as he clipped the MK16 back to its strap. "He sayin' anything I don't already know?" he muttered in an undertone.

John's eyes were on Sterling's lips, listening with his eyes more than his ears, and he shook his head.

No new intel.

The cruise ship had lost power within ten minutes of leaving the lock, and had grounded itself in the shallows only fifty yards away. Satellite showed no obvious activity on board. Because it _was_ a boat, and it was sitting in cold water, the best they could see were the top two decks, and they were only picking up two heat signatures, both stationary. One on the bridge, and one towards the middle of the main deck.

There was also a faint isotope signature, coming from the middle of the main deck.

The ship's tender was docked not far away, along the opposite bank, and by the time they'd gotten zeroed in on the damn thing, the majority of the men fleeing had scattered. Police had been dispatched in pursuit of the ones Harlan had been able to track, all of whom had boosted cars, and Jack was sure at least some of those chases would end in captures. There were too many police mobilized at this point. They'd catch some of these guys alive.

Whether they caught the big fish tonight, that was still up in the air. But they _would_ catch him soon. Aydin's time was running out.

Sterling said something in a tone Jack recognized, and the Germans around them gave answering grunts and started loading weapons. Jack cycled a round into the chamber, then waited like a good soldier for their fearless leader to direct them onto one of the two polizei boats that were waiting for them. As he passed, Agent Sterling met Jack's eyes, and gave him a brisk nod.

It was a pretty substantial turn-around from the previous outright disapproval Jack had earned when he'd broken Kidney Puncher's hand, and Jack watched Sterling go by, then put out an arm and stopped John, letting the Germans pass by first.

". . . what the hell was that?"

Tunne smirked, and then checked his sidearm. "While you were tied up, I told Sterling how it is. He understands."

"Told him how it is?" They fell in step behind the Germans, and Jack noticed that Tunne headed for the same boat Sterling was taking.

"Yeah."

Jack gave the other agent another sideways look, and John sniffed and checked the chamber of his MK16, feigning obliviousness.

". . . and how is that, exactly?"

Tunne's smirk settled out into a grim smile. "They messed with your kids. You're here to get 'em back."

Jack didn't say anything else.

The boat ride took less than a minute. They did a quick sweep of the exterior of the visible hull, it didn't look like there were any surprises, and the water was way too black to get a look under. The second boat boarded from the stern, with their six guys coming up the outside and center of the main deck, and Sterling's boat docked at the main entrance. They'd meet in the lobby, secure whoever it was waitin' for 'em, then move on to the bridge.

Jack had a feeling he knew exactly who was waiting for them. And the fact that that heat signature wasn't moving wasn't sitting well with him.

Sterling and his man were the first off the boat, and he and John were right on their tails. The entrance to the main reception area of the ship was a sliding door, not unusual for a cruise ship, and it hadn't been booby-trapped. It slid open easily, and then they were in.

The main lobby looked exactly like you'd expect. Spooky as all hell, lit up with nothing but tac lights. Like the damn Titanic, it was opulent and empty, and Sterling and his partner moved immediately to secure the wide, main staircase that would take them up towards the top deck and the bridge.

Jack turned the other direction, where their buddies who boarded the back would come from, and his tactical light swept over a series of couches, all empty, and the hostess stand.

Blood was smeared down the wall behind it.

Jack advanced, denying it even he moved around the stand and found that the thick smear terminated in a body, wearing khaki tac pants and an olive drab shirt. Male.

Blond.

Mac was slumped against the wall with a combat knife buried hilt-deep in his chest. His eyes were closed, and his face was grey.

"No, no, no no no no no. . ." Jack wasn't even aware of the litany as he rushed across the room. His whole world shrank down to a single point, and then Jack was kneeling beside him, pressing his fingers deep into that pale throat, willing himself to feel something.

Anything.

When he finally did, he wasn't even sure it was real. It was the faintest flutter, and way too rapid.

". . . oh, bud," he breathed, and that was about the time he realized that Mac wasn't.

The lobby of the boat seemed to suddenly rematerialize around them, and Jack twisted around frantically towards the main hall. "Medic! We need a medic _now_!"

John was at his shoulder, speaking urgently into his radio, and Jack turned back to Mac in time to see his partner's precariously balanced head collapse bonelessly forward. Bloody froth flooded from his mouth and coated his chin before dribbling onto his chest. There was more of it, foaming around the hilt of the knife, and Jack caught Mac's slack jaw in his hands and gently tilted his head back up against the wall.

"Kid, don't do this." It was barely a whisper. "Don't you do this to me, buddy, you hear me? Don't you do this . . ."

One of the larger blood bubbles on Mac's sagging bottom lip crept slightly inward, and even as Jack watched, the thick foam around the knife resentfully blistered out another bubble or two.

He was still trying to breathe.

Jack almost sobbed with relief. "That's it. Keep breathin'. I'm here, I'm right here. Stay with me, Angus, you stay with me -"

Someone landed hard on the other side of MacGyver, and strong hands clamped down on Mac's throat. The medic wasn't a guy Jack recognized. It didn't matter.

The guy gave it no more than a five count before he glanced Jack's way, and even in the dim light of an indirect tactical beam, the grim set of his mouth said everything Jack didn't want to hear. He moved one of the hands cupping Mac's face to the guy's sleeve, and he yanked the dude close.

"Whatever it takes, you keep him alive. You hear me? _Whatever it takes_."

It didn't matter if the guy didn't speak a word of English. He got the message, jerking his arm free only to reach for the straps of the pack on his back. Someone was shouting, and Jack felt himself hauled backwards as another man shouldered into his position.

Jack was dragged to his feet and steadied, but he didn't take a swing. He had eyes only for the two shadows working on Mac. They carefully pulled him off the wall and laid him flat on his back, and then the first guy finished assembling a mask and bag while the other pulled a knife and slit the kid's shirt open.

Mac's blood-smeared face tipped limply to his right, away from Jack, and then he disappeared under the breathing mask. Jack sucked down an unsteady breath in time with the medic, watching his partner's chest barely seem to inflate.

Mac was dying right in front of him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Gradually John's voice started cutting through the hum. "- ote it in blood. It's smeared . . . uh . . ."

Jack was shoved firmly over to the wall – for support, he realized as he was released – and Tunne stepped away and trained his flashlight on Mac. He was interested in his legs, not his chest, and the threat of even more injuries he hadn't seen yet had Jack moving, stepping up woodenly beside him.

The medic had slapped two AED pads on Mac's bared chest, avoiding the knife, and the machine was blinking as it tried to detect a heartbeat. Jack forced himself to drag his eyes down to his partner's legs.

He was basically in uniform. Like he was back in the Army, nineteen years old again. His boots looked comically large, and the laces were undone.

Jesus. He was still so young.

" _Dalton!_ "

The sheer intensity in that voice snapped through his stunned brain, and Jack flinched a little, then glared at Tunne. The other agent was wearing his game face, but there was anger rippling just beneath it.

Not angry at him. Angry _for_ him.

"Jack, I need you here. Mac's tryin' to tell us something." John gestured sharply with the flashlight. "Can you read that?"

The light was shining on Mac's left thigh. Bloody letters stained the fabric.

He'd left them a message.

Just in case –

Not just in case.

He knew. He'd known the second it happened how bad it was.

Jack swallowed, and forced himself to look. To read what could be his partner's last words.

. . . which looked like a god-damned chemical formula.

Jack frowned a little, then he looped Mac's feet to get a better look. There was an S . . . no. There were two. Two words. The first was S, E, M, and a line. Maybe semi?

The second was a little larger, but blood had seeped into part of it, blotting it out. S . . . maybe an L, then an N and K or an X, and then . . .

Or -

"SINK V?"

John was leaning over, trying to get closer without interfering with the men working on Mac. "No, that last is an N."

Sink N.

"Sink'n," Jack said aloud. "Semi sinkin'."

That didn't make any sense. They were either sinking, or they weren't.

John also looked confused. He grabbed his radio, and this time Jack heard it with both his ears. "Castle, how deep is the river at this point, over?"

If the boat was only semi sinking, why was that so important that Mac felt the need to write it down? He must've known they'd find him immediately –

Whoever had fucking put him there had to have known.

Jack glanced back up at the wall, and the paralyzing numbness that had crept into his brain was replaced with a slowly burning fury. The surface of the wall, beneath the blood, was chipped and damaged. Someone had driven that knife completely through him and into the wall behind him. Pinned him up like a sticky note.

Like a message.

It took a hell of a lot of strength to put a short blade through a man's chest. It wasn't like running someone through with a sword. And that was a nine inch tactical knife. Bigger than most guys typically carried. Overkill.

Unless you were a big dude.

" _I am . . . glad I did not kill you. The colonel . . . is so looking . . . forward to it."_

Aydin. Aydin had done it himself.

He'd put Mac on that wall personally. As a message.

For him.

Jack took a slow breath. Then another.

In his ear, his radio crackled. "Archer Archer, the river is a little under seven meters deep at your position, over."

Not deep enough to submerge the ship. But plenty deep to fill it mostly full of water.

Semi sinking.

And Riley had said there was part of a crew on board. If the Turks hadn't taken them, then –

Then they would be on the lower decks, where they weren't getting picked up by satellite. Assuming they were still alive.

He saw that Tunne had made the connection the same time he did, and the other agent turned and sprinted for the nearest set of stairs, hand on his radio. Jack hesitated, glancing at Mac.

The medic who was manually bagging him had stopped, lifting the mask off his face about two inches, and then the AED beeped, three times, and administered a shock. Mac's paper-white chest barely twitched. The AED again tried to sense a heartbeat, and the medic immediately replaced the mask and resumed bagging him. Bloody foam continued to seep out around the knife, which they hadn't even bothered to stabilize yet, and the second guy, assisting the medic, was freeing a chest tube kit from its plastic bag. The guy handed it off to the medic and reached up to take over bagging Mac. As he did, the soldier glanced up at him.

His English was almost perfect. "He's being airlifted to Academisch, in Amsterdam. The pilot is reconfiguring your helo now."

A flight from here to Amsterdam would take over an hour on a medical bird. Mac would never survive it. But the helo they had just outside, the NH90, had a top speed of close to two hundred miles per hour. A good pilot could get Mac there in half that time, if the bird was light and he pushed the engines.

And Jack knew they had a good pilot.

A couple keywords in the droning radio chatter caught his ear, and Jack tuned back in.

"Archer Archer, this is Archer One, please repeat last – the ship is sinking?"

It must have been what John transmitted. Jack honestly hadn't paid attention. He mashed down on his radio. "Sterling, you got the captain?"

There was a very brief pause. "This is Sterling, the captain is alive but unconscious."

"Grab his keys and head for the engine room. Tunne's already on his way. Mac says the boat's floodin'."

SINKN was way the hell shorter to write, but the inaccuracy had clearly bugged the kid enough that he'd had to add that little qualifier. Semi.

Even sitting there with a knife in his chest, all he could think about were the other people on the boat. Of all the things he could have written them, written _him,_ that was the most important thing. The only thing worth the pain.

Jack's radio crackled to life. "Archer Archer, converge on lower decks! Repeat, all available men, get your asses down here! We have standing water, roughly three feet deep and rising. Multiple crew members trapped, over!"

Still Jack hesitated. The medic's blue-gloved hands worked quickly over Mac, and Jack had to avert his eyes when the long, wide needle came out. The medic rapidly attached the chest drain, and blood immediately started flowing down the drain tubing.

It was dark, it looked almost black under the yellow flashlight beam.

The soldier assisting was still working the bag, keeping air moving in and out of Mac's lungs, and he glanced up at him.

"We know," the soldier said shortly. "He is one of us. We will take good care of him."

They knew he wasn't a terrorist. Knew he wasn't one of Aydin's. In a few seconds, someone else was going to come in with a stretcher and they were going to bundle him off the boat and into the air.

This could be goodbye.

And Jack knew, he _knew_ what Mac wanted him to do right now. What he would be begging him to do. Ordering him to do.

The AED pads beeped out another warning, and both men removed their hands as the machine delivered another shock. Mac's body gave a weak twitch. His eyes remained closed.

Jack stared at his partner another long second, memorizing every painful detail. Then he swallowed it all down, to burn heavy and bitter in his gut.

"I hear ya, buddy. I'll take care of it," he promised softly. "But the deal is, you gotta stick around 'til I get back. Ya hear me, Mac? Don't you quit on me. Don't you dare."

Before he could change his mind, Jack scrubbed his face and forced his feet to move, to carry him down the same set of stairs that John had taken. He followed them as far as they went, ending in a hallway full of cabin doors and no sign of water anywhere, and it didn't take him long to discover the maintenance corridor. Once there, he followed the sounds of shouts and splashing to a narrow stairwell.

The water at the bottom of it was breathtakingly cold; Jack couldn't hide a grimace when it topped his boots and flooded in. By the time he hit the bottom of the stairs the water was up to his thighs. Most of Archer had beaten him down there, and Jack slogged into the dark hallway, checking the nearest door.

Aydin's guys had done a number on it. Jack saw immediately that the captain's keys weren't going to help. Some kind of glue or epoxy had been forced into the keyholes, and based on the pounding and frightened shouts coming from all over the hall, the crew had been spread out, a couple per cabin.

Meaning they were going to have to clear the whole damn deck, door by door.

By the time they'd released the last pair of soaked, wide-eyed young waiters, the water was almost to his chest, and Jack couldn't feel anything below his armpits. Fortunately the MK60 worked just fine in wet conditions, they'd had to use bullets as keys, and he held the weapon over his head as he and another man shepherded the last two crew members to the nearest stairwell. First responders dispatched from the banks were crawling all over the ship, and had confirmed the passenger decks were empty. Jack wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, because those people sure as hell had to be _somewhere,_ and it wasn't exactly easy to keep a hundred and fifty people hidden.

Even harder if they were breathing.

John was waiting for him on the landing while Jack tried to navigate the flooded stairwell with completely numb legs. He was probably banging the hell out of his shins, but he didn't feel a damn thing. He just stomped around blindly until the floor got higher.

"Mac's almost to Academisch. They've got a trauma team and OR prepped and waiting."

Jack grunted an acknowledgement and finished hauling himself up the half-flight of stairs.

". . . you coulda gone with him, Jack."

Dalton paused on the landing, glancing down to make sure he still had all his gear. It was soggy, but there.

"Extra weight woulda slowed 'em down." Then he shouldered past Tunne, and trudged up the stairs. "What about Riles?"

"Still getting checked out." The other agent fell in step behind him. "Polizei have captured two guys so far. Webber's on her way to interrogate them."

 _That_ pulled Jack up short. "What?!"

John held up a hand, and Jack could see how much he was shivering. "Above my pay grade."

He was already going for his radio when Jack remembered it wasn't Phoenix coms. John and Saito had been pulled in from another op, so Tunne was on with Matty.

"So she found the leak? How they got her address?"

The other agent shrugged as they squelched their way to the main deck. "Dunno."

"That is the damn stupidest thing I have ever heard," Jack growled to no one in particular. They knew the colonel was close – he'd done a damn fine job of funneling most of the city's law enforcement and emergency response to the one place in Düsseldorf they knew he _wasn't_ – but that didn't mean he wouldn't try for her again.

"Tell her no."

John arched an eyebrow at him. ". . . _you_ tell her no."

"I don't have a fucking com in my ear, do I." It was getting hard to talk without his teeth chattering. Funny how getting out of the cold water made you shiver harder.

"I don't think Wolff's going to let you question any more of Aydin's guys," John pointed out mildly.

Jack glared at him, then turned and stomped off for the main lobby, trying to shake the water out of his boots.

Someone had brought in lights, they were trying to gather as much evidence as possible before the Rhine took it. The stain on the wall was in bright relief, but the wine-colored carpet showed only a shadowed puddle where they'd laid Mac down. Jack stared at it a long moment, and a series of shivers wracked his spine.

"Jack, you should go check in with Davis. She's fine," John added quickly, when Jack rounded on him in alarm. " . . . you're not."

That was probably coming from his ear. Comin' from Matty. Trying to bench him.

Jack just shook his head, and his gaze once again fell on the bloodstain. The wall had been scraped, all the way down, the exposed plaster had picked up the red blood more brightly than the matte green paint.

When Mac's legs gave out, his body weight had pulled the knife free, dragged it down the wall.

"I did this to him, once," he confessed quietly. "I was a hot mess. He hadda send me off in a bird and keep working, like it hadn't happened. Thought he'd never see me again." Another set of shivers ran through him, and Jack took a deep breath.

"Guess he's just gettin' some payback."

Tunne came up beside him, but didn't touch him. "Dalton, you don't need to be here. We got this."

They didn't have this. Not until he had Aydin's throat under his fucking boot did they have this.

"What I _need_ are some dry clothes and the service kit from my bag," Jack growled. "Then I want everything we have on the colonel's current location. And tell Matty she ain't comin'. That's an order."

-M-

Well, that was neither fast nor short. The second cliffhanger was right there in the middle, but lucky for you it got resolved in the middle too. I'm not even going to try to guess if the third one will happen next chapter.

In summary – Jack and company tracked down one of Aydin's men, and learned that Mac stuck the tracker in some hand sanitizer, marking anyone who used it (and several bad guys did). Matty and Harlan used that information to track down where some of the colonel's men were headed – and then Riley called them from the lock with the location of the big man himself. Liris tried to trick German polizei into shooting Riley as a suicide bomber, but she glammed herself up with a pair of scissors and a marker and got out alive – won't Mac be proud!

If he lives. He's not doing very well. And they didn't exactly translate his clue correctly, so the colonel himself may still slip through their fingers.

The reason for the delay on this chapter was all Jack. He didn't really know how to respond. I ended up re-writing that last scene a couple times, and completely trashed the third draft and started over, which is what's above. This reaction seemed to fit a little better, even though Jack 'seems' to be handling it pretty well. Hopefully you agree!


	12. Chapter 12

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Special Note** : I meant to mention something in last chapter's Author's Notes, and **TerriJ** spotted it and pointed out my accidental omission. (Thank you **TerriJ!** ) There's a reference to a time when Mac had to pack a badly injured Jack onto a helo and send him off, afraid he'd never see Jack alive again. That is actually a future Turkey Day: All the Trimming, requested by **Gib**. It's a surprise - don't tell her.

I'll continue to reference the Trimmings as they occur, so those of you who are reading this, but haven't read the Trimmings will know there's a bit more there.

-M-

"The INTERPOL bulletin was sent from a computer in Warsaw." It was clear from the analyst's tone that she didn't believe it any more than Matty did. "I've alerted the National Police to a possible breach."

Matty bit back a sigh, and glared at Patience when the agent replaced the stainless steel cup in front of her with a new one, full of electrolyte solution.

At least it wasn't in view of the cameras.

There was no way some hapless Polish cop had issued the INTERPOL bulletin on Riley. Meaning they had to wait on the Poles to complete a forensic analysis of their network to get anywhere else with that bulletin. It would be evidence when they finally nailed the hacker, but it wasn't going to get them any closer to finding that asshole in the next fifteen minutes.

Then again, if the hacker had been on the boat, once power had been cut, they had to be using the cellular data network. And even if they _weren't_ physically there, someone had to be in contact with the hacker to give them Riley's location. "Is Düsseldorf close enough to the border that your surveillance net is still capturing data?"

On the monitor displaying the Dutch war room, she saw Mila frown. "I'm afraid not, director. Only devices connecting to cell towers in the Netherlands are monitored. The Germans have the capability, but I don't think they had the time to initiate it before the bulletin was sent."

Matty didn't miss the polite rebuke in that comment. Germany hadn't had time to set up any kind of surveillance because she had advised not bringing them in until the last possible moment.

That line of investigation effectively stymied for a few hours, Matty refocused on the op. The Germans might be wearing bodycams, but Harlan wasn't yet privy to those feeds. Their only ears were the radio transmissions, and they could watch on satellite. She'd gone ahead and had Agent Tunne's coms patched into the main conference line with Harlan's people, but he was silent as the eight-man team began boarding the eerily quiet ship.

"Polizei have begun pursuit of a third suspect," a Dutch analyst confirmed. "Multiple gunshots reported in District One."

Harlan made a noise of acknowledgement. "How many are we tracking?"

"We have eight, sir. Three of them entered a condominium. It looks like they pulled the fire alarm. The tenants have started evacuating the building. We've dispatched officers to that location."

The Turks would blend into the evacuating people and get lost in the noise. They knew authorities were watching via satellite.

On a topographical map of Düsseldorf, red triangles started popping up, all the men they'd caught on satellite leaving the cruise ship's tender. They'd scattered in all directions, and the triangles confirmed a seemingly random pattern. They were trying to create distraction and thin out the police.

All of which confirming what Riley had already told them. The colonel had been on that ship when it had left the lock. He was right there in Düsseldorf.

And at four in the morning, with less than half an hour's warning, there was no way to get a perimeter around that city.

Matty toggled herself onto mute on the conference line, and picked up her phone. She sent a quick text. Then she focused on the camera tying her to the Phoenix. "Jill, I've just brought the interim director into the loop. Get up to the War Room, and get our analysts working on this now. I want every camera in Düsseldorf. Traffic cams, ATMs, private businesses. We can't lose Adyin."

Beside her, she heard Bozer very deliberately not say anything. On the monitor, Jill gave a nod and disappeared with a flap of her white lab coat.

Matty gave him a second to think about it, but Wilt didn't say a word. "Spit it out, Bozer."

He didn't jump, this time, when she called him out. He just hesitated for another second.

"Matty, we still don't know how they found you. If it gets out that you're still alive before we catch the colonel-"

"Then they might come after me again. Or they might not." She would have loved to turn her head to look at him, but her neck was too stiff for that. "I'm not the headline here, Bozer. If we don't get the colonel before he disappears into Germany, our odds of catching him while he's still in Europe are the same as Dalton winning a beauty pageant. The only isotope reading in Düsseldorf right now is sitting on that ship, so unless the colonel just up and decided to turn himself in, I think it's safe to say we can't track him that way."

On the screen in front of her, someone spoke. "Sir, we've got the ship's manifest. It's the _Panorama_. One hundred and twenty-seven passengers should have boarded on Monday – in Rotterdam."

Matty ignored that for the moment. "This manhunt has now gone halfway across the EU, and we're still three steps behind. We need to get ahead of him."

Bozer bit his bottom lip. "I get that, Matty, I do. But these guys, they ain't playin' . . ."

"Neither am I." Matty toggled them off mute, rejoining the conference line. "Deputy Director, I've just authorized additional Phoenix resources to come onto this op. We should be able to help get eyes."

Harlan Wolff gave her camera a droll look. "I won't ask how."

She gave him a small smile. "And I won't tell you." Then she turned her head as far as she comfortably could. "Bozer, get working on that passenger manifest. I want to know why none of those people have been reported missing. And why the cruise line didn't seem to notice the disruption."

"Uh . . . excuse me," Mila broke in apologetically. "This is only supposition, but the hacker must have realized as soon as we identified the ship we would go looking for clues in the cruise line's network. Given the sophistication of the software installed on Agent MacGyver's cloned phone, I think it's very likely that this hacker would have placed similar traps around the cruise line network. Probably automated, and just waiting for us to put it together."

"And that cat's out of the bag," Matty murmured drily, watching Archer team scurrying over the top deck. "You think the hacker might try to use the cruise line's other ships to increase the disruption." It made a lot of sense. By the time authorities identified the boat – which probably wasn't supposed to have happened yet, as far as their enemy's timeline was concerned – it would be pretty far into Aydin's escape. Creating that much more mayhem on the Rhine or in the Mediterranean would be in their best interest.

"And most cruise ships nowadays are just as computerized as planes, they can pretty much drive themselves. Someone like Riley could do a lotta damage. I'll see what I can dig up the old fashioned way." Bozer pulled up the passenger manifest that had been forward to them, and Matty turned her attention to the dots entering the main level of the ship.

It was quiet for so long that she thought about pressing Castle to ask for a sitrep, and when she finally heard a voice, she recognized it immediately as Agent Tunne.

". . . _shit_."

There was a very brief sound of a scuffle, then someone in the background started yelling.

"Castle, Archer, we need a medical unit in reception ASAP!" It came over the radio, and when John spoke again, it had lost the fuzzy quality, meaning he had switched to coms. "We found Mac."

There was no doubt in her mind what those two statements, back to back, had to mean. The isotope's presence in the ship, there was no way it would have been Aydin. At least Mac was still showing up as a heat signature –

But Riley had only left him about half an hour ago. He'd still be plenty warm enough to show up on thermals.

Bozer's fingers had stilled on the keyboard, and they heard John swear again.

"Jack found a pulse – I think - but Mac's not breathin'."

Castle – Ops Command – wasn't on their conference line, and couldn't hear John's assessment. "Archer Archer, medical cannot be dispatched until the ship is declared safe. Repeat, cannot clear first responders at this time, over."

The hell they couldn't. "Tunne, is there any sign of explosives or other traps?"

His response was immediate. "Negative. They wouldn't have had time to do more than set basic demo charges, maybe rig some kinda gas explosion in the kitchen. It's a big ship, Mac can't wait for us to clear it . . . he's in real bad shape, Webber," he added quietly.

The radio started speaking over John. "This is Archer One, Archer Three is team medic, he'll assess, over."

"Archer Three is already here, over," John replied over radio, and then they heard more shouting, and John grunting as if he'd just picked up something heavy.

Matty waited impatiently for Jill to get the Phoenix analysts online. "Harlan, how quickly can we get him airlifted to the local hospital?"

"Augusta is only a dozen kilometers. That is where we've sent your other agent." Wolff paused, consulting a laptop. "They have no helipad, but at this hour ground will be nearly as fast."

It would take the team of eight men – now down to six, presuming the team medic and Jack stayed with Mac – at least half an hour to clear the ship. She agreed with Tunne – if Mac was that badly injured, the delay was too long. "Agent Tunne, find something you can use to get Mac off that ship. An ambulance will be waiting."

"Copy." There was the slightest bit of hesitation in John's voice. "Stand by."

A presence appeared beside her, and she glanced over to see it was Agent Folami. Patience was right beside him, and Wilt had half-risen from his chair.

"What do they mean, bad shape?" he asked, his voice strained. "What do you mean?"

John didn't answer him. At least not directly. "Mac left a message," he said instead. "Looks like he wrote it in blood. It's smeared . . . uh . . ."

"Deputy Director, the German police have confirmed capture of a suspect."

Matty's attention shifted momentarily to the map with the red triangles – one of them was now marked green. "Is it the colonel?"

The analyst was silent – apparently listening to the polizei radio chatter. On the screen, they watched Harlan pick up a phone.

"Director Webber."

The screen that had been displaying Jill's empty lab had switched to a view that Matty was far more familiar with. Beside Jill, she recognized Liz, who was staring at the screen with an expression of total shock. It was mirrored by several of the analysts behind them.

"Thank you. Alright, people. Our target is disgraced colonel Batuhan Aydin. He was last seen roughly thirty-five minutes ago disembarking the _Panorama_ , which is without power and drifting on the Rhine just past the only lock in Düsseldorf. We believe there are thirty or more men with him. They've scattered throughout the city. We are partnering with Dutch and German intelligence on this. Miss Morgan, bring them up to speed."

"Yes, director."

Back at the Dutch command center, she could just make out Harlan's deep voice as he started to speak.

"Castle, this is Phalanx. You are hereby authorized to dispatch a four man team of paramedics to board the _Panorama_. Get them on a channel with Archer Three. Tell him the man he's treating is one of ours." He paused. "Confirmed. Have the pilot reconfigure the NH90 for emergency medevac, and transfer the injured agent to Academisch Medisch Centrum in Amsterdam." He hung up the desk phone without another word.

For just a moment, Matty wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Outing herself to her agency meant it was only a matter of time before she would be forced to reveal her involvement – and current condition of still being alive - to the rest of the intelligence community. Moving Mac to Amsterdam – which was definitely _not_ the closest hospital - meant transferring him back to the Netherlands, and potentially starting clean-up for what was turning into one hell of an international incident.

And she wasn't about to risk Mac dying in transit just so Wolff could perform damage control.

His own head analyst was thinking along an entirely different line. "Deputy Director, that's the only helicopter in the immediate area –"

"And all our suspects are on foot," he replied mildly, eyes back on the main monitors. "The Germans are sending in support units from Cologne and Bonn. They can continue the pursuit from the air when they arrive. Agent MacGyver saved many Dutch lives last year, and perhaps even more this week. He's spent days with the colonel, and I have no doubt he collected valuable intelligence during that time. He may be the best chance we have at learning the colonel's end game." Then he turned, and looked at the camera.

"Academisch Medisch Centrum – Academic Medical – is the closest Level One trauma center," he explained. "If he is as badly off as your agent says, Academisch is his best chance, and we can protect him there."

Matty considered that explanation carefully. "Thank you, Harlan."

The radio came back to life, and again, it was John. "Castle, how deep is the river at this point, over?"

Ops didn't even have time to reply before someone else spoke up. "The police have confirmed that the suspect in custody is not Batuhan Aydin," a Dutch analyst reported. "They have just captured a second suspect, also not the colonel."

Another red triangle shifted to green.

Getting those men to turn on the colonel eventually, she was sure she could do. Getting them to flip in the next twenty-fours was going to be much, much harder. She studied the red triangles, trying to pick out any pattern in their movements, when the radio came back to life.

"Archer Archer, the river is a little under seven meters deep at your position, over."

The previous question caught up to her, and Matty blinked, and toggled back to the specs on the boat. She had almost gotten its total height when John got back on the horn. "Archer Archer, proceed to lower decks immediately. Report any standing water. The ship may be taking on water, repeat, the ship may be sinking."

Both the Phoenix and Dutch analysts, on opposite sides of the globe, all looked up at the main screens in almost perfect unison.

Matty spoke first. "Talk to me, John."

He let go of the radio and swapped back to coms. "Mac wrote 'semi sinking' on his leg. If there's crew on board, they'll be on the lowest decks." She could hear him galloping down stairs. "Aydin's guys didn't have much time to set up traps. Scuttling the boat would be their best play."

It would kill all the hostages – the crew and any passengers aboard – as well as destroy a lot of evidence, all in one fell swoop. As a bonus, it would concentrate the bulk of their response to rescue and salvage.

And they had no choice but to play along.

Someone on the radio had the same damn question, and Matty ignored it and slid out of the chair, quite sure her anger hid any visible sign of pain. "Harlan, if they confirm damage to the ship, we can't play it safe. You've got to get rescue on that boat now." There were supposed to be almost two hundred men and women on that ship, most of them fifty years and older. Then she rounded on the other camera. "Jill, can we tell if the boat is taking on water?"

Harlan didn't bother to reply, he had his mobile to his ear, and it was Liz, not Jill, who answered. "Uh . . . the current waterline is about normal. But," she caught herself, "if the boat doesn't have its full compliment and crew, then we'd expect to see at least three, maybe four more inches of the hull exposed. If there are no passengers on the boat, then it's . . . it's heavy. It's grounded, it won't get any lower, but . . . yes. Yes, it could be flooding."

If it wouldn't get any lower, watching the hull via satellite wasn't going to tell them anything useful about the rate of flooding.

What would help the most were eyes in the sky, and bodies on the ground, tracking the men they'd already identified.

"Harlan, I think I've hidden on your tarmac long enough. I'm heading on site to help."

All of the agents on the plane with her turned to look at her, but Wolff didn't seem even remotely surprised; he simply hung up his mobile and turned to the camera. "I'll be heading to Germany's command center as well. We need to liaise more closely with our colleagues there, and our technical infrastructure is clearly not as secure as we would like." He handed something to Mila. "Remain at the airport, Director Webber. I'll arrange our transportation."

"Thank you."

Matty then turned around and addressed her three agents. "Leo, Patience, gear up. We'll be leaving shortly. Take whatever you need; I'll get it cleared. Keung, if there's anything you and I need to take care of before that, let's do it." Then she spun on her heel. "Bozer –"

But he was already closing up his laptop. "Get to the hospital and protect Mac. Got it."

Matty blinked, momentarily knocked off her stride. " . . . actually, I was going to tell you to stay here and keep working on the ship manifest. We have no idea which countries' citizens may be involved, and we need to know if we're looking for more hostages or a mass grave."

Bozer's lower jaw was set, but he kept his tone polite, and continued packing his gear. "Yes ma'am. I can do that from the hospital."

"Yes I know you can, but I'm not about to put you there without an agent to watch your back."

Wilt paused, with the laptop power supply half-shoved into his bag, and his head reared back a little. "I _am_ an agent, director. Or did you forget sending me to spy school?"

Matty cocked her head. "Bozer, you saw first-hand what kind of men the colonel sends to tie up loose ends. I'm not going to argue with you-"

"Good, because you'll lose," he interrupted, and finished shoving the cord into the bag. "You _brought_ me on this mission-"

"To what, Bozer?" She put her hands on her hips, ignoring Patience hovering behind her. "You think I brought you in because I needed you to fake my death? Please. Leo probably has enough makeup in _his_ bag to do that." Bozer's eyes narrowed, and she frowned at him. "Bozer, I brought you with me to take you out of play. Riley, Mac, Jack, me . . . this is payback. They're targeting the agents that took the colonel down last year. And since they _clearly_ know where you live –"

His face screwed up like he'd just eaten something sour. "Man, if they were gonna kill me, they'd'a done it when they got to Mac-"

"Oh please," she scoffed. "You really think Mac would have played along if you were lying dead two doors down?"

He'd already opened his mouth to retort, but apparently he couldn't readily think of anything to say. She helped him out. "Why do you think I pulled in Tunne and Saito specifically and put them on Jack? On their own, each one of them's an easier target, but the three of them together – it'd take every one of Aydin's remaining men to take down that dream team."

Wilt hesitated. "Okay, then, well, what about Samantha-"

"I gave my counterpart in Australia a head's up before we ever left Los Angeles," she declared. "Anonymously, of course. Samantha's protected."

Bozer's eyebrows shot for his hairline. "And you really think that I'm less capable of protecting myself and Mac than someone who can barely walk? Is that _really_ what you think of me, Matty?" He yanked the zippered pouch on the bag closed. "Maybe I don't have the experience that Cage does, or Leo or Patience or the rest of the team. But I passed that school with flyin' colors – _after_ I saved everyone in it. I been face to face with Murdoc. And I was in that villa. I know what these guys look like. I know exactly what they can do." He yanked the bag over his shoulder.

"And I am _not_ leavin' Mac with Wolff's guys, not when I know what I know and they don't. Mac spent the last four years watchin' out for me. Now he needs someone watchin' _his_ back, and I'm not about t'let'im down." He shoved his other arm through the backpack straps. "At least _I'm_ a movin' target. If they want him, they gotta come through me."

Matty let him finish, and when he was done she fixed him with a conciliatory look. "Oh. Well, _excuse m_ e, Agent Bozer. Do you have everything you need?" She politely indicated the bag. "What's the play, are you going to powder their nose when they breach the room? Maybe use your laptop to momentarily distract them with an original film before they kill you?"

Just a little of the bravado left his posture, but his eyes were still angry and determined, and his lower lip was just starting to jut out in a mannerism she knew quite well.

. . . good.

"Didn't pack your piece, did you, _agent_."

He refused to break eye contact, but he shifted his weight a little to his right side, a sure sign of defensiveness. Matty glared at him another few seconds, then relented, and waved her right hand in the air.

Without missing a beat, Leo crossed around them, offering Bozer a pistol and a spare mag in a discreet holster. "There's a vest in your size in the pilot's closet. I don't think I need to remind you that a firefight in a hospital is the _very least desired_ outcome. If anything should happen, let Wolff's agents handle it, and _do not_ engage unless you have no choice. Capiche?"

Wilt blinked down at the gun a moment. ". . . wait . . . if you only brought me-"

Matty resisted the urge to throw up her hands – it would hurt her back way too much. "Well, if you _want_ to stay on the plane like a good little lab technician –"

"No, no," he said quickly. "I got this."

She softened her expression a little, letting the pride show. "I know you do, Bozer. And I know you'll keep our boy safe."

Still looking a little unsure of himself – or more likely, expecting some kind of trick – he nodded and followed Leo back towards the cockpit to get a vest. Matty let them go and rolled her eyes before she turned to find Patience waiting with her in the front cabin with her forgotten steel mug of electrolyte solution and a handful of pills.

She crossed to the bench where she'd had her extended nap and gave the pills a dark look. Patience's face remained expressionless. "We'll also need to change your bandages."

"Won't that be fun," she muttered, and downed the pills. "I'm counting on your discretion."

While she might admit to the world she was alive, she was not about to admit she was less than one hundred percent.

The agent simply nodded. "Within reason."

" _Period_."

The diminutive agent cracked the smallest smile, and Matty nearly rolled her eyes again. "Yes, I know, if I pass out –"

"That's correct. Can you lay on your stomach for me?"

Matty did as directed, and the medic gently untucked the director's blouse and rolled it up. "Let me know if I'm hurting you."

Everything hurt. Just touching her hurt. Matty assumed she meant pain above what she was already feeling, so she didn't say anything.

The other agent worked quickly. "Wilt . . . you weren't really planning on deploying him to the hospital-"

Matty snorted quietly. "No. The gun and vest were in case the plane was boarded." Then she sighed, and carefully didn't flinch as adhesive pulled on barely-healed skin. "But he's safer at the hospital with Harlan's men than here on the plane with the pilots."

And honestly, he needed to be with MacGyver right now. They needed each other. No matter what happened next.

"Mmm," Patience hummed noncommittally, and pleasantly cool gel was slathered on Matty's back. She almost asked what it was, but then the aroma hit her and she decided she didn't want to know.

At least it didn't hurt. Much.

"He and MacGyver grew up together?"

Matty was honestly surprised Patience hadn't pulled Wilt's entire life story out of him by now. She must have still been preoccupied with her son. "Yes."

"Then it's good Wilt will be there for him," Pait said simply, moving on to the second bullet wound. "We heal better when we are surrounded by familiar and beloved things."

-M-

When the door opened again, the young, cheerful blonde-haired nurse was gone. In her place was a matronly redhead who was fading into a very dignified sort of mousy brown. Her eyes were also brown, almost the same color as Jack's, and Riley dropped her gaze back to her hands, which were frustratingly empty.

She would kill for any piece of tech at this point. A _phone_ would do the trick, it didn't have to even be a good one.

The nurse closed the door quietly behind her, glancing at the neatly folded hospital gown sitting on the end of the neatly made hospital bed. It was the _only_ thing sitting on the bed. Riley preferred the chair the doctor would typically take.

How on earth were there still hospitals in first world countries that didn't have terminals in the patient rooms?

"It's cleaner than what you're wearing now," the nurse pointed out, in lightly accented English.

Riley glanced down at the tattered dress she was still wearing. She hadn't had time to do it properly, she'd been hacking at the thing just to get it short enough to _maybe_ squeak by as a cocktail dress. And she hadn't noticed earlier, but right there, fully visible and large as life on the inside of her left thigh, was the hand-shaped bruise.

She crossed her legs, in a way she thought was fairly casual, and tried to play it off. "I'd take a pair of scrubs."

"You'd be more comfortable?" Something about the woman's tone made it sound like she was telling, not asking. "I'll go find you a pair, dearie. But before I do, I'd like to talk to you for a moment. Is that okay?"

Riley shrugged. "Do I have a choice?"

The nurse made a small noise, then hopped up surprisingly nimbly and sat on the bed. Her short legs dangled above the floor like a little kid's. "Well, I can talk _at_ you, but it'll go much faster if you talk back."

Her kneejerk reaction was to say she already _was_ talking back, and when she looked up again, the nurse's brown eyes were twinkling.

"My name is Sophie. I'm the head nurse. Are you Sarah Ditmer?"

Sarah Ditmer was one of her aliases – she didn't have as many as Jack or Mac, but there were a few occasions in the last year that she'd gone undercover. This identity was one she'd backstopped but never used, so no matter how good Aydin's hacker was, they could search every hospital on the planet for all she cared, they weren't going to find her here. There was nothing tying Sarah Ditmer to Riley Davis.

So instead of answering, the agent silently raised her right arm, where the band on her wrist declared her name no less than four times, in variously sized fonts, and in QR code, and in straight barcode. And she hated that even that small motion hurt.

"I'd take some Tylenol too," Riley muttered.

"Are you in pain?"

Riley sighed. Loudly. "Like I told the paramedics, I'm _fine_. I'm just bruised and a little sore. What I want is a pair of scrubs, some Tylenol, and to get the hell out of here. How can we make that happen?"

The nurse gave her a broad smile. "We're going to get along just fine," she said assuredly, as if to herself. "How long were you held against your will?"

Which reminded her. "Actually, if you had a fruit cup or something, that'd be great. And a coffee?"

"Dearie, I'm not a barista. I'm a nurse who specializes in treating victims of human trafficking."

. . . _what?_

Riley pulled herself up straighter, not quite sure what to say. ". . . uh, I don't know what they told you but-"

"You were taken against your will from the United States to the Netherlands," the nurse began. "You probably don't remember much of the trip. When you woke up, you were groggy and lightheaded. Your throat was probably dry and painful. They treated you like a thing, like an inconvenience. Dressed you in clothes that weren't yours. They didn't answer any of your questions, they didn't want you to speak at all. They kept you in a single room most of the time, maybe two. They fed you scraps, and drugged you routinely to keep you quiet. They left their fingerprints on your face, and on your leg there." The nurse nodded towards Riley. "Does that sound like the experience you had?"

At some point, her arms had crossed themselves over her chest, and Riley glared at the nurse. "Not even close."

Sophie nodded, as if that was the answer she expected. "You were admitted as a VIP, so your medical records are under our most strict privacy protocols. And there is a _very_ polite and capable looking gentleman just outside the door, who I believe would not hesitate to wrestle a pack of hungry wolves with his bare hands to keep you safe. I imagine he would win."

Saito hadn't said much on the ambulance. He'd joked with her when she turned his way, and otherwise just watched the paramedics and the vehicles following the ambulance with that disarming charm of his. She had zero doubts that he could have killed everyone in that ambulance in less than six seconds if he had felt there was even the slightest threat to her wellbeing.

It should have been sweet. But it just pissed her off.

Jack went after the colonel a man down because he thought she couldn't handle herself. Even after everything, she was still just a little kid to him.

And she hated the part of herself that wished it was him outside that door.

"You don't know me, dearie, and I know you'd rather be anywhere than here. You don't feel safe yet, but I promise you, you are. So just ask me what questions you'd like answered, and then we'll get you into some scrubs and up into a room."

Riley refocused on the nurse. "I'm good, so, no questions. How about those scrubs?"

Sophie nodded agreeably, and slipped off the bed, turning to smooth the sheet. "I see. So you know who it was then?" When she didn't get an answer, she spent some time picking at nonexistent lint on the hospital gown. "The man who gave you those bruises? Both the ones I can see and the ones I can't?"

Riley gave the woman's back a tight smile. "We're done here."

"And you know his sexual history?"

Her voice was perfectly steady. "I said we're done."

Sophie smoothed the last wrinkle out of the bed and turned. "It's far too soon to know about HIV or HPV, but we can run tests for the big four and begin treatment immediately."

Riley glared at the nurse. Much as she wanted to throw the woman out of the room –

It was a good question. One she hadn't even thought of. His sexual history.

 _But I don't even know if –_

And that was the problem. She didn't know. She didn't even know if she needed to worry about it.

Sophie gave her a soft smile. "Every woman is different, but as a healthcare professional, I can tell you waiting for symptoms to appear won't make finding out any easier."

Oh god.

What if she was -

Riley swallowed her throat back into working order. ". . . exactly how private is my record?"

The nurse glanced at the door, as if she could actually see Saito standing, wherever he was, out in the hall. "As private as you need it to be," she said seriously. "I can run those tests under any name you like."

And she could find that record, and the record of the record, and the log of the record, and delete it literally as soon as she got her hands on any machine in the hospital.

It didn't guarantee anonymity, but –

But it could be days before they got back to the States, depending on how quickly they caught Aydin. If there were . . . symptoms of anything, if Saito suspected, or Jack, or Mac said _anything_ –

Shit. Mac knew.

Would he tell Jack? Forget would, _could_ he keep something like that from him?

Mac would have been a raging ball of guilt even if the last twelve hours hadn't happened. He'd been acting like one since they'd first dragged him into that stupid cell. As soon as she next saw him, she could just tell him she got tested and it hadn't happened.

And maybe it would even be the truth. She wouldn't know unless –

Riley almost flinched when Sophie moved, taking a step towards her. The nurse didn't touch her, she just ducked her head, trying to catch her eyes. "Miss Ditmer?"

"Is that-" Her voice sounded strained, so Riley tried again. "You said to tell you what questions I wanted answered."

Sophie nodded. "Yes dearie. We can answer as many – or as few – as you want. You're in control of the procedure from beginning to end. A whole kit could take a few hours, but if you don't intend to press charges, or you know who it was-"

"I don't," Riley said quickly. "I don't need to press charges." Aydin was going to prison for eternity if Jack didn't kill him first. "And I don't . . . I don't know," she added in a rush. "I don't know."

"Okay," Sophie said easily. "That's okay. Tell you what we're going to do. I'm going to get you a little something to eat, and those scrubs you asked for. Then I'll bring the blood cart in, to take a few samples. It's a very normal procedure we do for even the simplest of physicals. It doesn't sound like we need the whole kit, so I can just tuck what we do want under the cart. Your very loyal gentleman friend will be none the wiser. How does that sound?"

The odds of Saito not catching that _something_ was up were pretty low, but it was a hell of a lot better than a nurse carrying a duffel labeled RAPE KIT in huge block letters. "I, uh." She cleared her throat. "I don't . . . like, I don't know what's typically part of a . . . this."

Sophie clearly expected that question. "Well, a big portion of the kit is butcher paper," she said, and then quickly backtracked at Riley's look. "To catch evidence from your clothing, dearie. If you wanted to press charges, we'd put butcher paper down to catch any evidence that fell from your clothing or your body during the examination. But it sounds like you don't want to do that."

Riley mutely shook her head.

"In that case, all we really need are a few sample containers, some swabs, nothing too big or obvious. If you're comfortable, we can do a physical examination and I can use my smartphone for pictures if you want them."

"I don't," she managed.

Sophie nodded again. "That's okay. And if you change your mind at any time, or have other questions, we can change things up and that's completely up to you."

Riley nodded again.

"If you need anything, you let me know."

"A laptop," Riley blurted, surprising both of them, and she ran a too-empty hand through her hair, stopping when she encountered a sore place on her scalp. "Uh, the guy outside, his name's Saito. Tell him I asked him to track me down a laptop. Anything will do."

"I'll do that now," Sophie promised, and after waiting a few seconds for any other surprise instructions, the nurse gave her an encouraging smile, and breezed out of the room, like any other nurse on her way to chart and maybe bring her patient a soda.

It went exactly like Sophie had said it would. She came back with a tray, and despite how much Riley's gut was churning, it hadn't had anything for almost twenty-four hours and the fruit, cookies, nuts, pretzel crisps and cheese nibs disappeared almost instantly. The blood drawing was exactly what she'd expected, and the nurse made her go through some light stretching exercises with her right arm and shoulder before declaring that it was a sprain, and wouldn't require a sling. She didn't say anything about the scarring.

Together they got most of the marker off her eyes, using something Riley was pretty sure was just almond oil, and the bruising and half-healed abrasion on her cheek were declared to be healing nicely. Her scalp, back, throat, and abdomen were checked, and Riley waited nervously while Sophie lined up a few things on the counter beside the bed.

Mostly sample containers and very, very long Q-Tips.

When Sophie had everything arranged the way she wanted, she turned back to Riley, and offered her the scrubs. "You can put on the top now, and slip under the sheet if you like."

The rest of the exam was precisely as embarrassing and awkward as she'd feared. She wasn't shy, at least by American standards, after all she visited her gyno once a year for birth control refills, but she couldn't make herself relax. There wasn't much pain, not even up to pap smear standards, but that only made her worry more.

The way her hip muscles were pulled, it felt a lot like the position she was in now. She didn't look, there was a folded white sheet between her and what Sophie was seeing, but she felt it when the nurse gently examined the bruises, asking for numbers on a scale of how bad they felt. Several swabs were taken, and then Riley could have sworn a small comb was involved.

She couldn't bring herself to ask any questions, but the nurse kept up a steady stream of reassuring conversation. Sophie explained the various panels and what they'd be testing for, how long she could expect the results to take to come in, and what they would mean. Riley knew the nurse was moving as quickly as she could, well aware that her patient was uncomfortable, and she was suddenly, irrationally grateful that this woman, this friendly, short little red-headed German nurse, who was older than her mother, was the one doing this.

She was a stranger. Riley would leave the hospital probably tomorrow morning, and never see Sophie again. There was no judgement, no awkward follow-ups to schedule, no sympathetic glances to dodge. That made it easier, somehow.

And while she appreciated the woman's calm efficiency, she was horrified that Sophie clearly had so much experience.

"How, uhm, how often do you see . . . human trafficking here?"

"Here in Germany?" There was a quiet click, another sample container being sealed. "More than I would like. I don't know if girls are becoming more brave, and approaching people for help, or if we are getting better at catching criminals, but it seems to be happening on a much larger scale than back when I was a nurse just starting out." A blue-gloved hand reached up and gently unfolded the sheet down, covering her, and then Sophie's face came back into view.

"I think we've gotten answers to all of your questions," the nurse announced. "Unless you have any others?"

Riley shook her head stiltedly and sat up, folding her legs Indian style under the sheet, and Sophie rolled away in her little examination stool, finishing tucking the last sample cannister into a plain, unmarked white cardboard box.

"Now. What name would you like this to go under?"

It was literally the last thing on her mind. "Uh . . . something commonly German, not with my initials?"

Sophie gave that some thought. "I could see you as an Annamarie." She considered it further, uncapping a black marker. "Annamarie Weber?"

Riley almost choked. "Uh, no," she said immediately.

Sophie's brows raised. "Well okay then," she agreed. "How about Fischer?"

Annamarie Fischer. That was fairly benign. And it wasn't a name Riley herself had come up with, so if the only Webber in her life went poking, it wouldn't immediately stick out.

"Annamarie Fischer sounds great," Riley told her, and the nurse jotted it down.

"Well, just so you know, Annamarie Fischer was admitted a few hours before you. The rest of your test results will be linked to your actual medical record." Sophie started gathering all her various items. "I'll bring the results to you myself. For the ones that won't come back for a few days, how would you like me to get them to you?"

She'd hack the hospital network and set up alerts that would forward the information to a secure account. After she created a backstopped identity for a woman named Annamarie Fischer who lived in Düsseldorf. But that probably wasn't what Sophie wanted to hear. "Uh . . . Annamarie's sister will call you?"

The nurse nodded as she climbed to her feet, and tucked the little white box under the bracket of blood vials, like it just contained spare vials. "That will work. I've got this shift for the next few days, but if Annamarie's sister leaves me a message with a number, I can call back."

Riley nodded. "Sounds good." She picked up the scrub bottoms and slipped them on, still under the sheet. "Thank you," she added quietly.

Sophie smiled. "You've been admitted for observation, and I know you must be tired, dearie. I'll have a nurse transfer you upstairs to a room. Try to get some rest."

Riley snorted half-heartedly. "Like anybody gets rest in a hospital."

Finally, she got a laugh out of the nurse. "Well, at the very least, I'll make sure you get a large breakfast." She opened the door, pushing the blood cart through, and then paused for a moment. She said something, far too quietly for Riley to hear, and then the door closed again.

And then she was alone.

Riley took a deep breath, then rotated her right shoulder in a few circles before she flopped back on the bed. It was a little smaller than a typical bed back home, though she was happy to say she hadn't spent much time in a hospital – at least not as the patient.

The last time had been after the villa, in Phoenix medical.

Riley opened her eyes wide, staring at the ceiling, and she was still staring at it when the door opened again, and the young, blonde nurse from earlier came in. She was bright and cheerful, with a heavier accent than Sophie, and after messing with the bed a little, had her out the door and into the hallway.

A shadow peeled itself off the wall as she passed and followed – not too closely – as they made their way down a rather quiet hall and towards an elevator. Once she was loaded in, Saito was forced into slightly tighter quarters, and he gave her a quick grin.

"You, uh, you missed a spot," he told her quietly. When she just stared at him, not quite understanding, he ran his finger under his right eye.

The marker.

Awesome.

He grinned more broadly at her eye roll. "Want me to see if I can dig up a football?"

Riley sighed. "Hah hah. I'd rather you dug up a laptop."

Saito indicated the backpack over his shoulder, and that was when she realized that he wasn't wearing his tac vest. He wasn't wearing anything even remotely military-looking, not even a visible holster. He was both neatly dressed and completely non-descript. Just a guy at the hospital, there to visit a friend.

Of course. Aydin's guys – if they were still after her – would be able to locate her room instantly if cops were staked out around it.

Riley looked at him more closely, trying to figure out if he was wearing a vest at all, and his grin faded to something a little more serious.

"We're good. No one's come sniffin' around. The locals are persistent but I've got an understanding with the captain."

He must mean the police captain, because the captain of the ship didn't make any sense. Riley knew better than to ask him with the nurse in the elevator, so she kept her mouth shut and laid flat on the bed, and her eyes eventually fell on the camera in the corner of the elevator's cabin.

If the hacker was running any kind of facial rec on hospital feeds, they'd eventually luck out and find her. She probably needed to do something about that sooner rather than later.

They got off the elevator on the third floor, and Riley was rolled about halfway down the hall before they reached a small but private room. Saito camped out in the corner that held the visitor's uncomfortable-looking recliner, and watching him subtly secure the room was easier than watching the nurse fuss with her blankets, bring her a tray table, and set a large insulated cup on it, complete with bendy straw.

The nurse handed her the remote control for the bed, which she promptly used to tilt the head of it up, and another pillow appeared from a standing cupboard she was more than half sure was legitimately from Ikea. The blonde told her that breakfast would be in about an hour, and Riley glanced at the windows, noticing for the first time that the sun had just started to come up before Saito pulled the blinds.

"How about you try to catch a nap?" he suggested.

She knew that wasn't why he had pulled them shut.

After the nurse had fussed her last fuss and finally left the room, pulling the door gently shut behind her, Riley turned towards the other agent, who had dragged the recliner to a much more tactically sound position in the room, as if he legitimately thought she was actually going to stay there.

Riley just stared at him expectantly. Saito gave her an innocent look.

"What?" He sat down and made a show of getting comfortable. "You're good. Phoenix security has eyes on from back home." He tapped his ear. "It's Carter, too, so he's checking in every twenty minutes like clockwork. You might as well get comfy, because you're not working this op, Davis. Do us both a favor and get some shuteye. I got first watch."

Riley continued to silently stare at him, and he gave her a bright smile, then fished his phone out of the pocket of his jeans and settled in for what sounded like a game of Bejeweled.

That was when she noticed his boots. And something Jack had taught her, on a train hurtling from Berlin to Frankfurt, came right back to the front of her mind.

Saito was dressed in layers, a faded purple tee under a dark navy jacket and blue jeans. But under the jacket sleeve, a military-style watch was peeking out, and on his feet were combat boots.

Operators could change their clothes in a pinch, but not their accessories.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Think you forgot to not make yourself totally obvious there, superspy."

Saito glanced over the edge of his phone at his boots. ". . . good eyes, superspy," he complimented her. "That's kinda the point."

Riley gave him a look that clearly said she wasn't following, and he shrugged. "If someone good enough to notice me comes lookin', I need to make sure there's something to see."

He'd left them on, intentionally, so Aydin's guys would notice him, and try to follow him back to her. He'd painted a bull's eye right on his own back.

Which led her immediately to the next thing on her mind. "So? Did you get the colonel or not?"

Saito went back to his game. "You're not working the op, Riley. Everything's under control. Go to sleep." 

She thought about grabbing one of the pillows and throwing it at him. "Don't you think I kinda need to know if people are coming to kill me?"

"Nope." She heard the little jingle that meant Saito had cleared a level. He didn't say anything else.

". . . nope I don't need to know, or nope no one's coming to kill me?"

The Japanese agent let the next level load, then paused the game and looked back up at her. His expression was far more serious.

"No one's getting through me," he told her, his voice unusually low. "We don't have the colonel's men all rounded up just yet, but it's only a matter of time. You and I are going to stay right here until we can get secure transport back to Amsterdam. I know it sucks – trust me, I _know_ \- but you're safer here than just about anywhere else."

Riley scoffed. "I'm _fine_. I have literally gotten more banged up at the _beginnings_ of missions with Mac and Jack and still worked them. And if I'm so safe, then why the hell not just give me the damn laptop and let me help?!"

Saito opened his mouth to answer her, then held up a finger, and she noticed him change his grip on his phone. For a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen, and she took a breath to let him have it when he shook his head, once, and then looked back down at his phone, like he was texting.

A beat later, the door opened with a quiet knock.

Riley glanced over to see a very tall, almost Scandinavian looking orderly in ill-fitting scrubs. He had a hospital tray in his hands, and she could see steam curling out from under the cover in the brighter light from the hallway.

"Good morning," he greeted, with a heavy German accent, and proceeded to plod into the room.

Saito stood up smoothly. He'd dragged the chair against the far wall, across from her bed and between her and the door, and it was immediately clear the guy had a foot and a hundred pounds on him, easy. Riley felt her legs curl up and realized with a jolt that the bedrails were up, and it was going to be hard to scoot out of the bed if she needed to.

"That was fast," Saito said, his tone friendly. "Breakfast already?"

Hadn't the blonde nurse said it would be an hour?

The orderly lumbered to a stop, surprised to have been interrupted, and glanced down at the shorter man. "Yes. Breakfast," he confirmed, and moved to slip around Saito.

The agent grinned, and said something in German. The orderly paused again, focusing more on Saito, and he responded, sounding surprised. Then he said something else, rapid fire, and she picked out the word 'Sophie.'

"Nurse Sophie?" she called over, trying to make her voice light. "The red head?"

The orderly looked up from Saito to her, clearly not wanting to run the Japanese agent over, but also clearly wanting to bring her the tray. "Eh . . . Nurse Sophie," he agreed, and then she realized what Saito already had.

The guy wasn't a threat. He just didn't speak very much English.

Saito plucked the tray out of his hands with something pleasant in German, and the orderly nodded, then replied, also something friendly. Saito laughed politely, then said something in a teasing voice, and the orderly grinned and when he replied, Riley was pretty sure it was bro talk. The orderly then turned with a wave, and in another moment he was gone, pulling the door quietly shut behind him.

The Japanese agent waited a beat, then turned himself and brought her the tray, setting it carefully on the table. It was on wheels, somehow rolled under the bed, and he evaluated how best to get it closer to her. "Uh . . . I think this bedrail needs to come down. Is that okay?"

She felt her eyebrows rising. ". . . yeah . . . ?" What was she going to do, fall out?

He found the large release on the bedrail and moved it fluidly down, and when she reached to tug the table closer he quickly took a step back. Riley stared at him another long second before she suddenly remembered she was not, in fact, an invalid, and sat up in the bed like a normal human, cross-legged, and pulled the cover off the tray.

It smelled _awesome._ Sophie hadn't been kidding about the large breakfast. There were scrambled eggs, at least two different brat-sized sausages, breakfast potatoes, sliced tomatoes, a funny little hospital cup of hot water with three different types of tea, a croissant, bacon, and a danish. It was almost enough to distract her.

But not quite.

"Why are you being weird?" she asked him directly, even as he retook his seat in the recliner.

He gave her an almost blank look.

"You heard me," she told him, unrolling the cloth napkin to find real metal flatware. Sophie hadn't skimped. "I can interrogate you and eat at the same time. What the fuck is going on?"

He wasn't jumpy, but he wasn't –

He wasn't being familiar with her.

Back at the villa, he'd constantly been telling jokes, or elbowing her and making fun of his partner John, or the other guys. Even after the shooting, he'd hugged her. Sure, he was making jokes, about her eye makeup and stuff, but he was being –

Hands off. He hadn't touched her in the ambulance, hadn't even taken her hand. He'd kept his distance from the exam room, kept his distance in the elevator, he'd just asked her if it was okay to move a piece of _furniture,_ he'd all but flinched away when she'd come anywhere near him.

He was treating her like Mac had.

He knew.

Something in her expression must have changed, but Saito didn't drop the innocent act. "I already gave you the highlights, Davis. Besides, that guy was ten kinds of shady."

She quietly set the flatware back on the tray. "You know . . . last year, I just about got my throat slit, and even with a busted arm, two pints of blood down, and full of tequila, you stopped Zee from benching me, and I quote, because 'I'm more than just a pretty face'." Her voice had started to shake a little by the end. "So you wanna tell me what the _fuck's_ changed?"

So what if it had happened. So what if every test they ran proved it. It didn't make her any less of a person, of an _agent_. She could understand the coddling from Mac, he was an idiot, and from Jack, who was an even bigger idiot, but if this was the way everyone was going to treat her –

"You've been in enemy hands for five days," he replied, simply.

And that was not an acceptable answer. "So what? You weren't there. You don't know the first goddamn thing –"

"I don't need to," he interrupted. "Riley, do you remember how we treated Mac, when we got him back last year?"

She was so angry she almost didn't even hear the question.

"You remember how Jack treated him? He insisted everyone was hands off. He kept telling Mac that he wasn't going to let anyone touch him. Do you know why he did that?"

Like that was even comparable. "He was fucking _tortured_ –"

"Riley, it doesn't matter." This time his voice was sharp, sharp enough to get her attention. "It doesn't matter if they dipped you in boiling oil or locked you in a spa for five days. You were held against your will. You were attacked and physically restrained. It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what did or didn't happen. You don't touch someone who's just been in a situation where their bodily autonomy has been compromised. Ever. Not unless they ask you to."

Hot tears stung her eyes, and Riley fought to keep control. "That doesn't explain sidelining me-"

"Do you honestly believe you're thinking straight right now?" He softened his voice a little. "If I hand you a laptop, are you really on your A game?

She bared her teeth. It was way easier than crying. "I don't know. Let's find out."

He held up his hands placatingly. "We will," he promised. "After you eat something and get some damn sleep. I _don't_ know what happened, but I can see that you're fatigued. I'm not going to be responsible for a – a typo getting you killed."

Riley scowled at him, then swung her legs off the side of the bed that conveniently no longer had a rail in her way, and promptly got to her feet. "Okay," she agreed, and headed right past him for the hallway door.

And just like Mac, he reached out to catch her arm – but stopped himself.

"Dammit, Riley - they're not fucking around!"

He didn't touch her, but he did pace her, and he put his booted foot against the base of the door as she went to yank it open. She whirled on him, not missing the way he didn't flinch. He was ready and willing to take a punch. She could probably whale on him and he still wouldn't move his fucking foot.

"Neither am I!" she snarled at him. "Now get the hell out of my way! You don't want to be _responsible_?! Well, who fucking _asked_ you to! You won't touch me but you'll lock me in my goddamned room?! _Fuck_ you!"

He didn't say anything, and she shoved him backwards, hard. As expected, he didn't really move, or try to defend himself. So she hit him.

As hard as she could. Right in the face.

He must have moved, angled his cheek somehow, because her fist ended up sliding by his jaw, just glancing him.

She couldn't even hit someone properly. Someone who was just standing there, right in front of her, literally asking for it, and she couldn't even fucking punch him in the face.

She couldn't do anything.

Riley followed up with a wild swing that forced him to raise an arm to block, and then her body remembered the entire combo. Right hook, left jab, left jab, knee to the groin, hook the back left foot, left elbow strike, palm the face and complete the throw.

Somewhere in the middle it got all turned around. She was on her left knee, exactly like she would have been if she'd just thrown him into the floor, but he wasn't beneath her. He was beside her. She was breathing hard, like she'd actually thrown the punches, like she was in a real fight. Her heart was pounding in her ears.

She couldn't do anything.

She couldn't get away. She couldn't get out of the room, out of the building, out of the city.

Out of her skin.

Her chest got tighter and tighter, trapping her, and all she could do was crouch there, on one knee, and try to breathe. She could actually feel the air in the room crushing down on her, and she quickly lost track of Saito. She lost track of the floor. She lost track of everything. All she could hear was the triphammer of her own heart.

 _I am having a panic attack._

The realization didn't help.

She had no idea what finally made it ease a little. Maybe the fact that she accepted it was happening. When it felt like she was maybe starting to get somewhere with catching her breath, she managed to open her eyes, and found Saito's nearly black ones staring right at her, holding her face in his hands. His mouth was moving. Then he gulped a mouthful of air, paused for just a second, and let it out. He did it over and over again, drawing her face up towards him as he inhaled, letting it relax back a little as he exhaled, and she did her level best to match his rhythm.

She never could. He always managed to hold his breath just a fraction of a second longer than she was. By the time she finally caught on that he was doing it on purpose, she could actually hear things.

"-there you go. Let's get to a four count, okay? And in," and he sucked in a breath with her, and nodded their heads gently together, two, three, four – "-and out," he breathed, and she shakily exhaled.

Riley had no idea how long they knelt there, foreheads almost touching, just breathing. His eyes never faltered, even when she closed hers she could still feel them right there, she knew he hadn't gone anywhere, wasn't going anywhere. Eventually she got enough control to swallow, and when she tried to pull away from him and sit up, whatever power had been holding her up was suddenly gone.

She probably would have face-planted, but luckily he was still holding her, and she collapsed onto her right side. Her shoulder didn't appreciate it, and she continued to roll away from him until she was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. He settled beside her, close by, one hand still on her jaw, and he stroked it with his thumb, in the same rhythm they'd been breathing.

She closed her eyes and used it as her metronome. Four count.

It actually woke her up, when he finally moved. She was suddenly aware of how cold she was, the floor felt like the ladder in the lock, and she rolled to her left side, intent on getting up off of it. Someone offered a hand, which she took, and it was steady and warm. Riley didn't remember much of getting back to the bed, all she remembered was finally hitting it, and uncoordinatedly drawing the covers over herself.

For a long moment, the bed was even colder than the floor.

A soft weight dropped down on her, then another, and she grabbed the edges of the new blankets and pulled them up to her nose, shivering violently. By the time she realized she'd stopped shivering, she also realized she had fallen asleep, and it was too hard to wake up, so she didn't.

Right up until something made a loud snapping sound, right by her head.

Riley startled awake, staring at the shadow of closed blinds on a white wall. Nearer to her feet was a very apologetic looking woman Riley didn't recognize.

"I am sorry," she murmured, in accented English. And then Riley remembered where she was.

She craned her neck, glancing over a generous pile of blankets, and found the table over her bed was the reason for the noise. The nurse had been moving it, and there was a tray on it, containing something steaming.

. . . there was no way that was still breakfast . . .

Was it?

The nurse was still talking, but Riley didn't pay her any attention. She just pushed herself into a sitting position – and when had the bed been laid flat? – and glared around the room.

Saito was sitting in the recliner, not a hair out of place, with his phone in his hand. He gave her a bright smile.

"Good afternoon," he greeted her, with only a slight lilt of sarcasm. "Hungry?"

Riley groped around for the remote before she gave up and used the buttons on the inside headrails of the bed to raise it. The nurse said something about coming back to check her vitals and turned, giving Saito a bright smile of her own as she left the room. Riley raised the back of the bed almost as high as it would go, and continued glaring at Saito, trying to decide what to do.

Her stomach gurgled loudly.

Curiously, she pulled the lid off the tray, and the meal there was completely new. There were still two sausages, each as big as a brat, as well as some kind of caramelized onion potato mixture that smelled amazing, some pork schnitzel, apple juice, boiled cabbage, spinach, and something that looked extremely chocolate and decadent sitting beside an apple.

Before she could get distracted – before she could even let herself think – Riley dug in. She was more than halfway through the plate before she even thought about talking.

". . . do you want some?" she managed around a mouthful of schnitzel.

Saito was clearly playing a game, but his eyebrows bounced to acknowledge the question. "Nah. Thanks though. Had a big breakfast."

It took another two bites of potato and boiled cabbage – which was really sauerkraut, but she'd never had it slightly sweet and kind of pickled – before his words really sunk in.

She raised her eyes to see that he was watching her, clearly waiting for her to catch on, and he grinned when he saw that she had.

Riley glared in response, and washed down the enormous bite with apple juice. "You ate my breakfast?"

"Well, yeah," he said, the picture of innocence. "If Nurse Sophie went to all that trouble, I didn't want her to think it was wasted."

She killed the apple juice and switched to her clunky insulated cup of water. "And you're flirting with the nurses now?" she grumbled when she was done.

He shrugged. "It passes the time."

The first little pang of anxiety crept into her stomach, and Riley continued stuffing her face, completely rejecting any physical reaction. He must have seen it, though; Saito eased himself a little more upright in the recliner.

"Finish eating. Then I'll catch you up."

In the end she polished off everything but the apple. She decided to keep it as edible ammunition. She'd eat it if she needed to. Or she'd throw it at his head.

Saito got through another couple levels of Bejeweled before he trusted that she was well and truly finished, and then he reached into the armrest and pulled out the smartphone's charging cable, where he'd wedged it to keep it from getting away.

"How do you feel?"

Drained. Angry. Embarrassed. Anxious. Also full, and pleasantly warm. Somehow all at the same time.

"Better." If it sounded a little grouchy, well, she felt that too.

"Good." He stood, and then slowly stretched his back like a cat. "On a scale of fluffy bunny to nuclear holocaust, how pissed off are you right now?"

She leaned back into the pillows and crossed her arms. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe Schwarzenegger with a pair of uzis?"

He looked a little surprised. "I'll take it over Inigo Montoya."

She narrowed her eyes. "If I wanted you dead, you'd know."

Saito huffed out a little woof and rubbed his left bicep. "I got an inkling," he murmured. "You've got some skills."

The halfhearted attempt at banter fizzled out, and Saito dragged the recliner as close as the phone charging cable would let him get, and sat right on the edge of it. Then he lightly clapped his hands together, and pointed at her with them.

"What happened earlier-"

"Just forget it," she said quickly, shaking her head. "I don't know what happened. I shouldn't have-"

"- was perfectly normal," Saito continued, as if talking to a particularly slow adult. "You just came down off a five day adrenaline spike. It'll probably happen again before the end of the day."

That was a big fat hell no. "I feel better, really-"

"I know you do. You ate something and got some sleep," he shot back lightly. "But you've still got hormone soup for blood. It'll take you a while to get back to baseline. It takes _everyone_ a while to get back to baseline," he added as she opened her mouth. "Literally everyone. Me included. John too. Hell, Jack, for that matter."

She'd never seen Jack lose it. Not like she had. She'd seen him take a swing at something in anger, sure, but she'd never seen Jack have a panic attack. Not once. Not when Murdoc kidnapped Mac. Not when Jack thought she was going to be murdered by hackers and dumped in the ocean.

Not even after the villa.

"You just haven't seen it up close," Saito told her, correctly reading her expression. "And the only reason for that, besides the rest of us having had a few more years to get the hang of it, is because every single one of us fights it just as hard as you are."

She knew, intellectually, that he was probably right. She'd been see-sawing between drugged into a stupor and scared out of her mind, with long periods of low level anxiety in between. The relief she'd felt, standing on the lock, it had just been the beginning of what was probably very much like a hangover.

And if she'd been drunk for five days, she didn't even want to think about how long that hangover was going to last.

"There's no trick, unfortunately. Not one that I've been able to figure out," he continued. "Most of us let it out by degrees over the days and weeks after something like this. In your case, I think this is the first time anything like this has happened, so it's gonna sneak up on you."

The emotional See'n'Say in her brain finally settled on 'embarrassed,' and Riley shifted a little on the bed. "I'm fine, Saito. It wasn't that bad-"

"I saw the video."

That one simple sentence almost stopped her heart. While she might, she _might_ have been able to come to grips with what had happened, or not happened, or maybe never knowing what happened . . . knowing that what happened was displayed on a screen for others to watch –

Riley knew she blanched, and Saito's eyes softened.

"One of them, anyway. The call they made once Mac was in the Netherlands."

" . . . wait, what?" Only after she saw the flicker of surprise on his face did she realize she'd said it aloud.

"You were pretty heavily drugged, you might not remember," he allowed. "I don't know how many chats you two had before then, but Wolff's analysts were able to piece together the video from . . . Wednesday night."

Riley just stared at him, not sure what to say. They'd been . . . FaceTiming Mac? Using her? She didn't remember –

Her arm getting twisted after she'd attacked the guard, waking up in a different part of the room. Sometimes her throat was killing her, those first few days. They'd been drugging her, and then hurting her, and making Mac watch. Keeping her too out of it to tell him anything, pass along any information, or even know herself that he was coming, what they were making him do –

She didn't remember posing for that Unibomber photo either.

Oh god. How many other things had happened, that she just didn't –

Didn't remember.

"You don't have to tell me what happened," Saito tried, bringing her back to the room. "But I know it wasn't a party. Riley, reacting to it doesn't make you weak, or less of an agent. It makes you human."

. . . why hadn't Mac told her? Did he think she remembered it?

She shook her head, more at her own thoughts than what Saito was telling her, and he kicked one of the bed's wheels. "Look at me." Once he had her eyes, he continued.

"There's no threshold you have to qualify for, here, or comparison you need to make. There's no checklist that says if you didn't meet a certain criteria, then it's not a big deal." He paused, making sure she was hearing him. "Trust me. This was a big deal. And it's okay to acknowledge that it was a big deal."

She found herself shaking her head again.

No. No, it was not okay to acknowledge that. Because in the great scheme of things, it wasn't that bad, and if this is how not bad felt, and she acknowledged that, then how much worse would it get?

"Well, even if your mind won't, your body will," he told her, not ungently. "You're not being sidelined because anybody thinks you can't handle it. We know you can. It's because you don't _have_ to."

There was only one thing she could think of to say to that. "So I _am_ being sidelined."

Saito chuckled softly. "Does 'paid time off' sound better?"

She shook her head, this time at his words instead of her thoughts. "No." Then she paused, and licked her bottom lip, where the split was still healing. "Can you at least tell me what's going on? If Jack's not here by now, then – and what time is it, anyway?"

"Early afternoon." He sat up a little straighter and glanced at his watch. "Jack's at Ops. The local BND chapter set up a command center here while we get everything sorted out. It's, uh, it's gonna take a little while."

Riley wracked her brain for the acronym. BND - the Bundesnachrichtendienst. German intelligence. She snorted. "Not if Matty has anything to say about it."

Saito grimaced a little, and an alarm bell started going off in her head. "Oh, Matty's definitely got something to say about it."

Riley raised an eyebrow, and he shook his head. "Let's just say Jack's not happy and leave it at that. She's probably on site by now."

"She's here?" Riley thought about that a second. "Here in Germany? How the hell'd she get here so fast?" Then – "I didn't like, miss a day or something, did I?"

Saito hesitated. "You missed five days, Riley," he told her gently. "It's Sunday. A lot's gone down."

Well, obviously Jack and Mac had flown in, Mac had broken Aydin out – which had probably led to an international incident; if Harlan Wolff was involved he surely would have recognized Mac, so –

"I didn't realize Wolff and Matty were actually in the same place," she admitted. "When I called. I didn't even think about it."

"They weren't," Saito told her. "She was on a Phoenix jet parked at AMS. Riley . . . uh," and he paused, then uncharacteristically leaned back and rubbed his hands together, "you weren't the only one the Turks targeted."

She stared at him, not quite understanding, and then her stomach dropped. "Did . . . oh my god, Bozer . . .?"

If they got to Mac, they must have gotten to him at his house. Which meant they knew where Bozer was, too -

"He's fine. He's in Amsterdam." It seemed like Saito was about to say more, but he stopped himself. "Aydin's guys went after Matty. Team of four breached her residence. She's fine," he added quickly. "But I don't need to tell you how hard it is to get Matty's home address."

No. No he didn't. That would have required someone with major access. She growled.

"Don't tell me there's _another_ mole at the State Department-"

"Unknown at this time," Saito told her. "But that was the worry. Two of the Maroon Berets made it out alive, so Matty let them think the mission was successful. The rest of the world thinks she's dead. Or at least, they did until a couple hours ago."

Riley just stared at him. "But that . . . she can't just play dead. She's the director of DXS, there would've been-"

"There was. Myrrh was enacted." He was as serious as she'd ever seen him. "It was leaked to everyone. CIA, NSA, DHS – only group I think she brought in was the Secretary of State. Mainly because we already vetted the shit out of them."

That was going to be a hell of a thing for her to talk herself out of. Enacting Myrrh alone would have notified Oversight, they would have put in an interim Director, Phoenix would've –

She was almost afraid to ask. "Is that . . . is that why it took Phoenix so long to find us? Me and Mac?" Had they not even been looking? "Did Mac know that, before -?"

Had he thought Matty was dead, all that time they'd been in the ship? Had he thought no help was coming?

"No, no, no." Saito scooted forward again. "No, Matty was on the trail as soon as she could get on a plane. She's been working directly with Deputy Director Wolff. Mac took one the isotope trackers with him, but it took Harlan's folks a little while to pick it up."

She just nodded. "The boat would have masked the signal. We were kept on one of the lower decks." Which reminded her . . . "Where _is_ Mac, anyway? With Jack?"

She expected a nod, a smirk, a shake of his head that would tell her that Mac, unlike her, could bounce back from being blackmailed, held captive, tortured, and beaten like it never happened, and _of course_ he was with Jack, tracking down the rest of the colonel's men.

Saito didn't do any of those things.

"He . . . after the ship left the lock, he took out power. They caught him," Saito said slowly, clearly watching for her reaction.

They caught him. Aydin's men had caught him.

He'd practically shoved her off that ship because he knew there were too many of them, and they'd get caught.

And that was exactly what happened.

She swallowed. "Is he . . . okay? Is he-"

"He was stabbed." Saito paused. "He's been flown to a hospital in Amsterdam. Last I heard, he's still in surgery."

Riley stared at him, and then his watch. "How long –"

"Riley, it takes as long as it takes." He scooted even closer to the edge of the chair. "He left us a message, and Jack and the others were able to get the crew out in time."

The . . . _what_? "In time for what?"

"The colonel's guys scuttled the ship. We got everyone off," he repeated. "They're okay. But it was a big enough distraction that the colonel slipped our net. A dozen of his guys have been identified, a few killed, and a few captured. The big man himself is still in the wind."

Colonel Aydin was still out there. In a way, she'd known it, the moment it had been Saito in the elevator, and not Jack. If the job was done, Jack would be here. He would be the one explaining what had happened. He'd have been the one who saw her -

"The . . . what about the passengers?"

Saito pressed his lips together. "Missing," he admitted. "And we think the hacker sabotaged the cruise line's network, so if we go poking around too deeply, it might release a virus or something else that will affect the rest of the company's ships."

She'd thrown off the blankets and started to get out of the bed before she even realized what she was doing, and Saito took his feet, not quite blocking the door, but close. "Whoa, hey –"

"Give me the laptop," she demanded. "If I have to stay in this room, fine, I'll remote my gear back in LA-"

"Hey," he repeated, holding out his hands. "You know if it was just you against the Red Baron I'd back off and let you handle it. But you're not the only one who could get hurt. Okay? This asshole had _months_ to plan this, and you know how good this person is. Think about what you would do, if you were him. And then ask yourself if you're in a good enough headspace to handle that right now."

She stared at him incredulously. "Are you _kidding_ me?! You tell me that a hundred and fifty people are still missing, that these assholes can maybe kill thousands more on dozens of ships around the world, that Aydin's still loose, that Mac's been _stabbed_ , and that Matty's here trying to clean it all up, and you expect me to just sit here in a hospital room and do nothing? This isn't a question of whether or not I can handle it – I _have_ to!"

He hesitated, and she brushed past him and headed straight for his backpack. She easily located the slim silver notebook, and then started rooting around for the power supply.

"It was the best the IT department could come up with on short notice." Saito sounded a little defeated. "But, Riley, your credentials at the Phoenix have been frozen –"

"I'll create new ones." She finally located the power supply – and had to shift aside a nine mil and at least three mags to do it – and came back up with both items to see Saito still standing there, looking torn.

"Riley-"

" _Dude_." She pushed past him again for the bed, searching for a wall outlet. "You were at the villa. You know _exactly_ what I can do when I'm stressed out and haven't had any sleep. If they know I'm still alive, they'll think that I'm – that I'm down and out." She caught herself in time. "That's an advantage that I'll lose over time. Now, do you have a spare com?"

She could see it on his face, the exact moment when she won, and Riley plugged in the power supply and curled up on the bed with the laptop.

Saito gave a quiet sigh. "I'll have one brought over. Until then, I'll find you a headset."

"And a coffee," she added, and powered on the notebook.

-M-

Well, I didn't get nearly as far as I wanted to, but Riley had a few things to get off her chest. Now that she's back in the mix, I think Mac's little warning about them underestimating her is about to come back and bite Liris right in the ass.

To those of you in Europe – especially **Maren1978** and **Johanna007** – I am so happy to hear that mentioning stuff near you makes your day! However, I'm pretty sure **Maren1978** is going to call BS because I'm almost positive there's not a lock in Düsseldorf , and if there is, I'm sure it's not called Lock Number 4. I totally made that up. And I'm winging the medical stuff here, too.


	13. Chapter 13

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

There is a reference to a situation that occurred in Venezuela – this is from my little collection of Turkey Day stories, titled Turkey Day: All the Trimmings. The one being referenced here is the one-shot called Citrus Punch. Just like its previous reference, you don't need to read it to understand this chapter, but it's a little something extra since the chapters have been so few and far between lately.

-M-

"Are you _fucking_ kidding me?!"

The voice was definitely Riley's, strident and quite clear over the laptop's speakers, and Bozer automatically glanced across the waiting room. If the officers standing guard at the entrance had heard her, they didn't react.

Just like they hadn't the last time. Or the time before that. Riley'd been swearing a _lot_ the last twenty or so minutes.

"'Nother dead end, huh," Bozer concluded softly, focusing back on his screen. "Whoever this guy is, he's good."

"He's better than good. This is, like, impossible," she snapped back hotly, and he heard a muffled sound he assumed was her swiping at her hair. Agent Saito had managed to talk her into taking a shower about forty minutes ago, but it hadn't really helped her mood.

And if he'd been trapped on a boat for a week getting alternately drugged unconscious and beaten up, he'd be pretty pissed off too. Wilt didn't blame her one bit. If they'd actually been in the same hospital, he would have been tempted to drag her off to take a break and find some crappy coffee, but he was at Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, and she was at Augusta, in Düsseldorf. There wasn't much he could do besides commiserate with her over coms.

"This guy is doing everything I would have done," Riley growled. "It's - creepy."

"Well, Riley, now that we know that they've been studying us for almost a year, it's not unexpected," Jill tried, keeping her tone reasonable. "I mean, they knew exactly how to get your attention at the conference."

Given the way she'd described it, they figured that the hacker and probably one of the _Bordo Berelilers_ had lured her into the empty hotel room with the perfect Riley-bait, then gassed her. She mentioned seeing three dudes in the hall right before, and Wilt knew Jill was running it down in the hopes of getting a few more faces to add to their facial recognition database, but he wasn't gonna hold his breath.

Besides, at this point it was almost moot. These guys were scattering like roaches when you flipped on the kitchen light. They were going on eight hours since the _Panorama_ had lost power, and they only had about half a dozen of Aydin's guys in custody.

And none of 'em were talking.

Bozer clicked on the window that showed the German Operations center dashboard, and there in the upper right-hand corner was the interrogation room. He didn't recognize the soldier, so it was a new one, and visible across from him was the back of Matilda Webber's head.

Wilt stared at the image for a long moment, then toggled to another window, one Riley had set up for him about an hour ago. It showed him a bird's eye view of an operating theater, where no fewer than seven people were buzzing around a table. Despite all the activity, there wasn't much to see. Mac's face and body were almost entirely hidden under surgical drapes and equipment, even when the hovering physicians weren't blocking the view. All Bozer could really make out was blood staining the fabric on his chest. A bag of it hung nearby, replacing whatever was being lost as the surgeons worked.

They'd brought in a new piece of machinery, which was situated somewhat near Mac's left hip, and two doctors were doing something to his leg.

The video didn't come with audio, and no amount of binge-watching medical shows was going to help him decipher what they were doing, or what it meant. All he knew is that they were still working, which meant Mac was still alive. It was the only bit of reassurance Riley could dig up for him. So far the surgical team hadn't rotated out, so there was no official chart. And despite the fact that he was sitting utterly alone in a special waiting area in the secured section of the hospital, and a member of the hospital staff came by to check on him every hour, they still wouldn't tell him anything.

"Yeah, they did," Riley groused, drawing Bozer back to the chatter in his ear. He, Jill, Agent Visser and Riley were on a private channel, so they could focus on finding the one hundred and twenty-seven hostages Aydin's men still had, and Wilt stared at the operating theater another second before he toggled back to his spreadsheet.

He was in charge of figuring out if any of those one hundred and twenty-seven passengers had actually managed to leave a trace of themselves. A credit card, a traveler's check. Any kind of spending that could give them some clue how that many people could just disappear.

Besides the obvious.

Which, in his mind, was obviously wrong. Colonel Aydin was selling himself as the people's alternative to Erdogan. At least, he had been last year. That he wasn't a politically motivated, murder-ey tyrant. Executing a diplomat who had sold out the Turkish uprising was one thing. But killing a hundred senior citizens, and citizens of more than a dozen countries to boot, wasn't going to score him any points with the Turkish youth. It was also going to piss off a metric assload of the international community.

Going after Phoenix agents would never make the front pages. Slaughtering rich old people would. Aydin was already on the lam. The last thing he needed was bad press.

So those people, they weren't dead in a ditch somewhere. They were alive, and as soon as the colonel made it into the clear, Wilt had a feeling they'd turn up, alive and well. He also had a feeling they _wouldn't_ turn up until the colonel was well and truly free. Any intelligence agency that captured him would be facing pressure from almost twenty other governments who wanted their citizens back.

One life for a hundred and twenty-seven. That was a pretty cut and dry decision.

And Kadir Hakan knew that, and was obviously banking on it. Even if his precious colonel was caught, he had one last card to play to get him out of jail free.

But the sergeant was a career soldier. Bozer had already looked at the entire file they had on him, and despite the fact it said he was dead, it also had his military record, family, birth certificate, next of kin. Even a record of his schooling. He had no obvious contacts in the Netherlands, nor elsewhere in Europe. From a military perspective, he would absolutely know how to quickly and invisibly evacuate civilians from a warzone, and Wilt suspected the same techniques would work here. But the rest of it . . .

"How did they know, though?" Bozer wondered aloud. When the question was met with silence, he elaborated. "They knew where Matty lived. They knew all about Artemis37. They knew where to find Mac – and before you say anything, I get it, that's easy to figure out. But the rest of this stuff? Like, I get how you could round up old people and stick 'em on a bus and take 'em to some hole in the wall for a week, but everything else? Besides us, where else would all that information even be available?"

There was a quiet, unladylike snort. "Boze, Uncle Sam knows just about everything about every US citizen. It's not a lack of data problem, it's a too much data to rapidly process problem. Matty knew about my handle when she took over from Thornton, and not just about the NSA hack. She also knew about the Pentagon hack before that. Which means the DoD or DHS must have known, and probably the CIA."

Bozer thought about that. "Well, all three of those places would know where Matty lived, too, doncha think?"

"But, Bozer, we've already looked there," Jill broke in apologetically. "All three of those agencies started massive internal investigations when . . . when Matty was attacked."

"Will they continue them, now that it will soon be revealed that she is alive?" Mila managed to sound merely curious.

Bozer shrugged, knowing that the camera on his laptop was active and anyone who had him up on their screen could see him. "Probably. Even though she's alive, she was still targeted and attacked."

"Yes, but now it is contained to a single agency," Mila pointed out. "It does not appear that Colonel Aydin's men seek to assassinate any other high-level intelligence operatives."

"We don't know that," Riley said bitterly. "He's going to have to get funding somehow, and without his assets or his buddy in Greece to fund him, he's gotta sell something. If I'd broken into one of those three places, I'd have taken everything I could safely get my hands on. That's top shelf intelligence."

That was true. While the men might have volunteered for the mission, they were going to need barracks. Supplies. Weapons. Wars were expensive. "I guess they could be thinkin' about ransoming all the passengers, that'd raise capital pretty fast."

Following that thought, Bozer toggled to the sheet that Jill had tied directly to the passenger's bank accounts. All of them still had steady balances. There were withdrawals, but none in the Netherlands or Germany, and none that weren't part of an already established pattern.

In fact, the only pattern in their spending that had been broken was the fact that they _weren't_ spending. The soldiers hadn't forced the passengers to clean out their own bank accounts.

"It would take a long time, and that's a lot of people," Jill said uncertainly. "Unless the plan is to contact each government's State department and arrange a flat payment for safe return of their citizens . . ."

"That's not a bad idea," Riley muttered. "Limited payments, you can offload the hostages a lot faster, and way fewer opportunities to get caught at the swaps."

"Great. So they're alive and just waiting to go up on the auction block." Bozer frowned. "Okay, you can't just keep a hundred people for a month. These are old folks. They got, like, heart problems. My gran went to the doctor at least once a week."

". . . even allowing that Europeans are healthier in their elder years than Americans," Mila murmured, "you're right. I don't think these people could be hidden the way Aydin hid his men in Cilingoz Tabiat Park."

Wilt agreed. Even allowing for good weather, tented barracks and hand-dug latrines were likely not going to cut it for the pampered elite. Old people were crafty. They'd have to be someplace more secure than a national park. Even if none of them made it out of the park, they could get lost and die of exposure pretty easily. And no one wanted to think about grandma and grandpa breathing their last as they huddled together at the foot of a tree in the middle of nowhere.

"Yeah, but if someone had just taken over, say, a hotel for a week, there'd be a major uproar. Canceled reservations, travel agencies would be involved, it'd be a thing."

"Guys, I've already checked hotels, hostels, AirBnBs, as well as busing schedules, train schedules, luxury shuttle rentals . . . none of them show any disruption." Jill uncharacteristically sighed. "I even looked on Twitter to see if there'd been disruption that the management companies were otherwise unaware of."

"And I am getting nowhere with the cruise line," Riley grumbled. "The network is littered with honeypots. I can't tell if there's a logic bomb here or not."

"So they're wasting our time again," Mila concluded. "They have used this tactic repeatedly."

"Yeah, well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Bozer shook his head and pulled up the Phoenix database, trying to decide how to build his search string. He was looking for someplace you could stick a hundred and thirty people, near to doctors who could be paid off, without anyone noticing.

Summer camps? They'd be out for the year. You'd just have to kidnap a groundskeeper or two, by the time anyone noticed the water or power usage, they could have sold all the hostages back.

Bozer went ahead and built out the search for properties matching that general description, and he hesitated before he clicked on the button marked 'timeshares.' They he let it run.

For maybe ten seconds.

"Bozer, did you just kick off a new query?"

"Yeah, that was me," he confirmed. "Why, did I just break one of yours?"

Jill made a small amused sound. "No, but you did just slow down a few. Anything we can do to make it more specific?"

Great question. Bozer paused it, then looked at the available criteria again. "I was just thinkin,' last time we got saved because of a seemingly unrelated missing persons report that just so happened to be a mile from the villa. It was too small a detail for us to catch, if Sarah hadn't seen it . . ."

If Sarah hadn't seen it, she never would have found the sniper nest, and he, Riley, and Jack would probably be dead.

"Well, yeah, a mile from the villa," Jill pointed out. "You just set it to a couple miles from any property meeting criteria for four countries."

"Uh . . . speaking of Sarah . . ." Riley sounded cautious. "I assume Matty brought her into the loop? I mean, if they're targeting agents who were part of the op last year, she was just as involved as the rest of us."

Bozer blinked. "Uh . . . not that I heard. Not that I _woulda_. Jill?"

The line was silent for a moment. "I don't know. She didn't exactly run the whole plan by me, either."

"And she's in interrogation right now, so we can't pull her out and ask her . . ."

"Hang on." They heard Riley, her voice muffled, pass along the question to Saito, who was on coms with Ops. Then she came back on her own mic. "Saito's asking Jack."

Not that Jack would necessarily know either, but at least he could walk into interrogation and make her write the answer on an index card or something, playing bad cop worse cop. Bozer refocused on the search criteria while they waited.

And then it clicked.

"Hey, Jill?" He didn't wait for a response. "My search criteria is too broad, so the search is gonna take a long time, right?"

"Only if you think thirteen hours is a long time," she said drily.

Wilt licked his bottom lip. "So, if I was to do a search across the whole, say, Phoenix network, lookin' for someone who broke in, that'd take a while too, right?"

"You mean our internal investigation? We haven't even completely finished it, we just secured our highest priority assets first so we could actually work."

Riley was way ahead of her. "Bozer, cut to the chase."

He frowned. "Well, if this hacker was doin' his homework, and the colonel's got some kind of intelligence connection, they know the CIA was involved at the villa. They handled the whole cleanup, and turned the major's body over to Turkish authorities. _And_ they tracked down the mole at the State Department. If the CIA is looking for a break-in, they're lookin' specifically to see who woulda accessed Matty's stuff, right?"

"But not necessarily Sarah's," Jill said thoughtfully, catching on. "Because the CIA didn't know the hit on Matty was tied to Colonel Aydin."

"Or Jack," Bozer added. "He used to work for the CIA too, right? Same time as Matty?"

"But – wait," Riley cut in. "It's not like Matty lived in LA while she was working for the CIA. That was years ago. If the hacker went in looking for Sarah, and those records led them to Jack, and then from Jack to Matty, there'd still be a log of the access of Matty's personnel file, even if –" She broke off, so suddenly Bozer thought she might have accidentally hung up on them.

" . . . even if what?" Jill asked.

The silence stretched so long that Bozer actually toggled over to the video call, just to make sure Riley was still there. She was, sitting up in a hospital bed in blue scrubs, with her damp hair down around her face. She was staring at something, but not typing. Just looking.

"I know how they did it," she said, with absolute certainty.

-M-

"Yeah, I hear ya." Jack exchanged a look with John, who was also on the Phoenix op frequency, and the other agent nodded to show that he'd heard, as well. Then he crooked his finger in a come hither gesture.

Jack pushed himself off the table he'd been leaning against and approached, and John stepped away from his own workstation with a grim look. "Guess who didn't show up for work today."

There on the screen was an email, direct from some dude from the United Nations. Jack skimmed it until he came across a familiar name.

Hatice Lahela Iris. _Clarice._ The lily whitest of all their hacking suspects.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "They thinkin' foul play?"

Tunne shrugged. "Initially it came to Wolff's folks as a potential missing persons. She's a high level analyst with access to a lotta classified shit. Phone's off, hotel room's empty, and Iris and her computer are nowhere to be found. No sign of a struggle."

Hot damn. Jack tapped his com. "Si, tell Riles she's lookin' for a clone of herself. John'll send you the info."

It wasn't a smoking gun – hell, maybe she _had_ been kidnapped – but it was the best lead they had. Tunne leaned forward to pass the info along, and Jack left him to it, and eased through the throng of people in the Germans' temporary command center, into the narrow, beige-tiled hallway of law enforcement buildings the world over.

God, he didn't miss this.

Dalton walked to the end of the hall, waving his temporary badge at the reader and looking at the thick brown plastic shoe molding on the floor, which showed countless dings and cracks from careless floor waxers and ten years' overdue maintenance. There was an audible click as the magnet on the door released, and Jack pulled it open and walked down a slightly dimmer hallway, where two interrogation and observation rooms were set up, next to one another.

In the first one, he could see through the observation room glass that a suspect was at the table, being interviewed by a smartly dressed dude. He headed into the other.

The other also contained a smartly dressed dude, though it was less a suit and more like a uniform. Harlan Wolff preferred a ratty brown, which made him almost invisible in a sea of charcoal greys. Like old upholstery. Despite his height and air of authority, he could make himself a bump on a log if he wanted to.

And right now he was the only one in the observation room, so he didn't need to intimidate anyone. He was watching through the window, rather than the monitor above him, and Jack quietly entered the room, coming up to the glass to see how it was going.

The guy sitting across the table from the one-way glass was new. Jack didn't recognize him from the courthouse. His apprehension hadn't gone super smoothly, if the huge shiner he was sporting was any indication, and his neatly shaven mouth was sealed tight. He was glowering, practically radiating hostility.

The target of that hostility couldn't have given less of a shit. Matilda Webber was sitting ramrod straight in the chair across from him, also silent, and when Jack glanced up at the camera, he saw she was wearing her deciding-which-of-the-nine-circles-of-hell-to-send-you face. It was clear Peach Fuzz was unimpressed.

Then Matty cocked her head to the side, decisively. As if he'd just answered her unasked question.

Jack watched the soldier's outstretched legs recoil a little, back towards his chair. As if he was getting ready for movement. As if he'd need to move.

As if she was a threat. He probably hadn't even noticed he did it.

She continued staring at him, then pulled out her smartphone and started texting. The soldier's legs pulled ever so slightly closer to the chair, in a clearly defensive gesture.

He thought he'd given something away.

"She is very skilled," Harlan murmured.

Jack couldn't help a snort. "One of the best."

Wolff turned his head a little, catching him in his peripheral vision. "You don't approve of her tactics?"

His tone had probably made it sound like that. "I don't approve of her presence," Jack corrected. Though now that Riles thought she'd figured out where the leak came from, he felt _slightly_ better about it. Jack wasn't about to tell Harlan before he told Matty, but there probably wasn't much harm in it. If Wolff's organization had been compromised, they'd already know about it. Someone had tipped off Kidney Puncher, but if they'd really known how close the tac team had been to getting Aydin, they'd'a handled that boat situation a lot differently.

Might've kept Mac as a high value hostage instead of using him as a post-it note.

Unbidden, the memory of MacGyver's long arms hanging limply off a field stretcher in Venezuela paraded across his mind's eye. Firefighters had half-strapped him to a backboard and were hustling him out of a big-ass hole in the concrete wall, where black smoke was still billowing out. Jack's heart had managed in one beat to jump into his throat, only to plummet straight to the bottom of his toes.

Kid had been a rag doll. Looked like one of them Dali paintings, melting right off the orange plastic. He'd been sure they were too late, that he'd lost him, but sure enough, when he met 'em at the ambulance, there was a little fog inside the oxygen mask, indicating he was still alive and kicking. Even if he was more than half cooked.

The way his body had moved, when they'd laid him on the deck of that ship, it had been the same. Boneless. Even unconscious people weren't as fully relaxed as that.

There was a reason they called it dead weight.

But Mac had pulled through, in Venezuela. Scared him a little, sure. Coughed like a career smoker for the next couple months. But otherwise, he'd simply shaken it off. He was young. His body had no idea it had limits.

If he could get through that, he could get through this.

 _Don't you forget, brother. We got us a deal._

Jack shook himself, then grabbed his phone. Since Matty was texting imaginary people, it would only help her deceit if she got a text back.

 **Riley thinks leak = CIA. Hacker looking 4 Sarah.**

True to form, she didn't look even remotely surprised when her phone buzzed in her hand, and she read the text. Her reply was quick.

 **Sarah's in Belize. Still trying to make contact.**

That was not the answer he'd been hoping for. But if Matty couldn't get Sarah, odds were these asshats couldn't either.

. . . wait. What was Sarah doing back in the field?

Jack almost texted her to ask, when Matty simply pocketed her phone. "Luxembourg." By the tone she used, she could have been naming her favorite soccer team.

The man across from her didn't move. Not a muscle.

Matty pushed back from the table and stood, straightening her jacket. "You've been very helpful," she told him. And she walked out of the interrogation room without another word.

Jack couldn't help a humorless chuckle. She'd probably done that with every one of 'em they'd caught so far. The silent treatment, a few texts, and the name of one of the neighboring countries. Makin' 'em think one of the other guys had given up the rendezvous point.

This guy wasn't good enough to fool her. He didn't know how to give her a subtle tell. So he'd clamped down on anything, which meant there was something _to_ tell. Relief would have made him relax those legs a little. He hadn't.

They were supposed to rendezvous in Luxembourg. It didn't mean that's where the colonel would be, but it did mean they'd find more of his men, which meant more chances to get some real intel.

Dalton withdrew from the observation room, stepping out into the hall in tandem with her, and Matty graced him with a glare as she pulled the door closed behind her.

The look said everything. She knew exactly what he wanted to say to her, and she wasn't in the mood to hear it.

Harlan was like a tall, silent shadow as Jack led the way down the hall, and politely held the door open for his boss. She was moving stiffly, and making it look like it was normal, but he knew damn well that it wasn't.

How she was still on her feet, he didn't know, but she could officially _never_ give any of them shit about working through an injury again.

"Luxembourg, huh?"

"Looks like," she replied, her tone clipped. "How solid is the CIA angle?"

"A hunch," he answered, and then they were back in the main command center.

Unlike Wolff's facility, they'd essentially taken over a regional police department. Their idea of a war room wasn't exactly up to snuff. Technicians had been scrambling to install monitors into some semblance of a proper dashboard, and he had to admit, what they'd cobbled together worked. An enormous map of Germany was on the many joined screens, complete with live street, air, rail, and river traffic cams, and the map had been slowly spreading outward in a circle as they calculated how far Aydin could have gotten from his starting point outside that lock.

Superimposed as an orange balloon was the last remaining isotope signature that they could confirm. It was three guys in a four door car, driving down from Oberhausen. They were under satellite surveillance, but being allowed to remain in play, as long as they weren't endangering any lives.

In fact, they were driving the speed limit and obeying all traffic laws, and seemed to be heading for the original rendezvous point of Essen. Whether they were aware they were being tracked was still in question, but they were essentially in custody at this point. Plainclothed German police maintained a distance of about half a kilometer.

Jack eyed the distance between Düsseldorf and Luxembourg. It was probably a three hour drive, no more. If that was the rendezvous destination, Aydin and his men from the boat had already gotten there and bailed hours ago. Which left the guy with the tracker on him – DoppelMac - high and dry.

Which didn't make any sense. The colonel wouldn't sacrifice men unless he had to. He couldn't afford it.

So the DoppelMac had to be heading to an actual destination. Maybe completing another mission? Laying another false trail? Maybe going to check on the missing passengers?

"Hey, Mouse?"

While Mila Visser was on coms with the dream team, trying to find the passengers, she was physically in the command center, and the woman turned from her monitor to give him a very passable side-eye. He grinned at her.

"We got any air traffic cancellations in Luxembourg in the last eight hours? Think private jets, tourist helos, that kinda thing."

Plenty of charters going on in that country, which made it a great place to hitch a quick ride outside the search grid.

While he waited, he cast a quick glance around the room, looking for another tall shadow who could make himself a bump on a log. Agent Folami was not holding up a corner of the wall like he'd expected. Instead, the former Recces was lining up a trick shot with a wadded up piece of paper. It looked like he was going to bounce it off several surfaces, including the back of an oblivious someone's head. John was observing from afar.

Dalton left him to it. Much like Saito, one of Leo's gifts was making people like him. With Si tied up keeping Riley safe, he needed another agent to ingratiate themselves with the Germans if he didn't want them to get frozen out of the action. Matty being open about who she was bought them a little leeway in that regard, but if he had his way, she was going to be out cold for the next twelve hours.

So he set his sights lower.

Agent Keung was there as well, seated at a table near the back beside someone else Dalton was willing to bet was a medic. She set down a half-empty cup of tea and looked up at him as he approached.

Jack reached up and clicked off his com. Then he leaned down low, until his head was nearly touching hers, hiding his mouth. "Do something about her."

"I already did." She barely moved her lips, but he could understand her easily.

"Pait, she's dead on her feet."

"I know," the diminutive Asian growled, still hardly moving her face at all. "But there's no reasoning with her."

Dalton huffed a sigh, and they watched Matty stand beside Harlan, the pair just like Mutt and Jeff, watching the screens. Now that she was out of interrogation, now that she didn't have to put on quite as much of a show, he could see the slump of her shoulders, the way she was holding her arms.

Jack was fairly certain that while she may have admitted to the Phoenix that she was alive, she had not revealed to anyone that she was injured and had zero business running an op. He'd gotten grazed on the back before. By more than a bullet. He was well aware of the peculiar pain of having to be conscious of holding your shoulders onto your body.

She could not keep this up. And if anything _did_ happen, if she ripped her stitches and started bleeding, or collapsed –

Then that particular reveal would happen in a time and a place not of her choosing. With potentially disastrous results.

"Knock her out. That's an order."

"I already did." Keung's hiss was frosty.

Jack glanced back down at her in surprise. ". . . does she know that?"

The medic's face declared that answer to be an unequivocal yes. "We had a brief discussion about it. If I do it again, she'll refuse any additional treatment – at least from me."

Awesome. Jack scowled, then leaned up and flicked his com back on.

"And if I didn't have it on good authority that you had a nap recently, I would have done the same to you," Patience said airily, too softly for the coms to pick up.

Jack gave the other agent another look - this time evaluating how serious she was – and he determined that she was fairly serious. But the fact was, he _had_ gotten a few hours. Him and John both. They'd stripped out of their frigid, sopping gear with Sterling and his guy, and then had to wait for a ride to German command. In the back of a transport, with the heat cranked to high to thaw out the hypothermic, adrenaline-depleted operators.

Jack was pretty sure every damn one of them had fallen asleep during that ride. But at least Harlan's boys had ponied up some spare BDUs and boots, and a hot meal. He looked like a damn Dutchie, but he was dry and mission ready.

The question was, where to.

Jack left Keung to her lukewarm tea and made his way back to the front of the room, where Harlan and Matty were still watching the map.

"So we headed to Luxembourg, boss?" Jack drawled, his tone painfully polite.

She knew what he meant.

Matty didn't even look at him. "Not until we have a more specific location. Did we get anywhere with the stolen vehicles?"

Seven hours had been more than enough for disgruntled Düsseldorfians to report their missing vehicles. The entire party of thirty-ish, sans the seven they'd caught, had managed to spirit themselves away in over a dozen vehicles. They'd also gotten a call from someone who claimed they'd been hijacked by two women and forced to drive to Leverkusen, which was the midway point between Düsseldorf and Cologne. There could have been other drivers on the road who had been forced to play cabbie to the Turks, and who may still be tied up in their cars so they couldn't make trouble.

Some of the stolen vehicles had been found. They'd been abandoned in small clusters within about ten miles of Düsseldorf, in parking lots with no CCTV cameras, which meant the Turks had either stolen new vehicles, or been picked up. Other feeds, like traffic cams in the area, had mysteriously gone dark around the same time - undoubtedly their hacker, Clarice, at work. Either way, until the next batch of vehicles was reported stolen, they had no idea what they were looking for.

Mouse had already voiced a sneaking suspicion that not all the stolen vehicle reports were even valid. That, once again, the Turks were creating false intelligence, spreading them thinner, and stalling them.

"No, director," Mouse replied. "Still no reports of any large vehicles stolen."

"What about trucks?"

"No reports of hijackings or any kind of mass rerouting that we've found." It was a male analyst, a German Jack didn't recognize. "We can focus satellites or drones on weigh stations and scan for heat signatures. They could have made the Rollene Landstrasse in Switzerland by now, but those cargos are typically verified."

"There have been seven light passenger aircraft charters for parties of twelve or more made in the last six hours," Mouse spoke up. "Your Phoenix analysts have vetted two; three were cancelled within the last two hours, and the other two cannot be confirmed."

"Have either of them taken off?"

Mouse checked. "Both of them. They haven't veered from their charted courses." She anticipated Matty's next question. "The destinations are Rome and Athens."

"Notify our colleagues in Italy and Greece, have them met on the tarmac," Harlan ordered, and Mouse bent over her keyboard.

Jack shook his head. "They'd know we'd be lookin' at planes and helos. Mac and Riles screwed up their time table, they've had to fall back to a contingency plan."

Matty huffed out an irritated sigh. "I hate to say it, but I agree with him. I'm sure it will take longer than we have, but is there any way to find out where other CCTV outages might have occurred? If we can't track the cars, maybe we can track the places they didn't want us to see."

"We have analysts working on that, and we've already sent a request through INTERPOL for local law enforcement to notify us of any unexplained traffic camera or CCTV outages," Mouse answered.

Webber considered that for a moment. Then she seemed to remember she was on coms with the dream team, because she touched her right ear. "Jill, send all the intelligence we have to law enforcement in Luxembourg. Tell them who they're looking for, and have them route intelligence through this command center."

Jack presumed she got an affirmative. While she was doing that, Harlan touched Mila's shoulder.

"Show us the radiation map again."

The analyst did as she was instructed, bringing it up in a subsection of the monitors, and Matty looked up stiffly at the deputy director.

"What are you thinking?"

The tall Dutchman stalked to the monitors, staring at them. "That we can use the same technique to track down the missing passengers. We were most preoccupied with where the tracking signature was headed, we paid much less attention to where it had been."

Matty touched her ear. "Riley, get everyone back on the main com channel."

In his own ear, Jack heard a quiet pop, and something in his gut unwound, just a little, when a no nonsense voice replied, "Done. You've got all of us, Matty."

The underlying sarcasm, laced with a little frustration – that was his girl, all right, after a bone. And she wasn't going to let up until she got it.

"Agent Visser, will you take us through?"

Mouse got to work, and Jack watched the screens. There were a lot of blobs they couldn't confirm were or weren't Mac's tracker. And a few they could. And knowing now that DoppelMac and Kidney Puncher had been tagged, they could at least try to figure out what the hell those two had been up to.

Besides laying false evidence trails, they might have actually visited those passengers.

"I've been meaning to ask," Riley's voice came over the coms. "What's all that activity up near Arnhem?"

Jill answered her, and Jack perked up a little when he heard 'Chernobyl', but otherwise it sounded like a dead end. Lumberyard with radiation-contaminated lumber. Yet one more thing to worry about when building a house in Europe.

But then Matty took a step away from the monitors and picked up her tablet.

Jack watched her for a moment, hoping that she was going to step a little further back and he might actually get a chance to talk some sense into her, but she didn't. Instead, she brought up an image, and Jack caught a glimpse of olive drab.

He was behind her in two strides.

She was looking at a photo of Mac's leg. Where he'd written "SEMI SINKN" in blood on his thigh.

Matty didn't seem to notice Jack had come up behind her, which wasn't a good sign. Seemingly oblivious, she rotated the image, so that the words were aligned with the bottom edge of the tablet, and then she tilted it a little, and brightened the image.

Hoping it might make his point, Jack leaned down a little. "What're you lookin' for?"

Matty didn't jump, but she did stop moving, which was almost the same thing. ". . . Jack, those S'es, do they look the same to you?"

They looked like the desperate scrawlings of someone who could literally feel himself bleeding to death, and Jack clamped down on the urge to tell her that. She already knew. She was after something else.

It was still damned hard to look at.

Blood, contrary to popular belief, was a terrible ink. It dried unevenly and seeped readily into woven cotton. Both the words were dabbed, both sloppily. But then Matty took the image and rotated it, just slightly, and he saw what she was getting at.

"The first word's written on a different axis," he said aloud. "Must've changed the position of his hand."

When he went back for more ink.

"It's also lighter. He wrote it faster." She zoomed in on the first word. It _was_ lighter, he'd used less blood. And not for lack of it.

"So what?" Maybe he'd started scrawling at his usual pace and realized that he was too messy, and tried to be more methodical with SINKN?

Matty took a deep breath, but she didn't speak, and Jack wondered if it was a reaction to the pain of holding up the tablet. He almost called her on it, but then she turned, and glared at him out of the corner of her eye, rather than tilting her neck to look up at him.

"I think these are two different things," she said quietly. "I think he realized the boat was flooding, and _after_ that, something else occurred to him. Semi."

Jack paused. "You mean, the eighteen wheels and a dozen roses flavor?" He shook his head. "Matty, we've been beatin' that dead horse for a while now -"

"What if they didn't steal or hijack it? What if they legitimately booked it, months ago?" She eased the tablet back onto the table beside her. "Jill, who owns that lumberyard?"

There was a brief pause. "Plato Woods? It's owned by a Dutch shipping conglomerate. There _are_ a couple Turkish expats living in the Netherlands who own lumber yards, and they do sometimes ship their goods via Plato, but that was the closest I ever got to tying anything at that site with Turkey or the colonel."

" . . . so, this might not mean anything," Riley started slowly, "but the room on the ship where I was held was lined in lumber. Particleboard. Several sheets deep. Probably woulda been . . . at least forty sheets to cover the floors, walls, and ceiling. It would have had to have been delivered to the ship, the same day they swapped the last cruise's passengers for this cruise."

Jack glanced at Mouse, and the agent shook her head. "All cameras around the _Panorama_ starting Monday afternoon went offline. We already checked."

"You're thinking they offloaded wood and onloaded passengers," Wolff said thoughtfully. "That they planned that part at the same time they chose the _Panorama_ as their target." He turned back to Mila. "Get me every shipping manifest from Plato for the last year. Look for deliveries of sheet particleboard in the last two weeks."

"You won't find them," Matty told him. "If Plato Wood had had a truck loaded with people and diverted, we would have heard about it by now. They have to be cooperating with the colonel. Blackmail, maybe a payout. Any paper trail is long gone."

"But not the radiation signatures," Jill piped up. "We didn't detect any on the ship, but Riley, you said you were kept on the lower decks. That would have blocked these other trace isotopes as well. Mila, do you mind . . .?"

She didn't finish the sentence, but Mouse seemed to understand what she was asking, because the radiation map suddenly got a lot busier.

"We intentionally removed those signatures to isolate the tracker, but if we search for the same signatures we saw in Arnhem . . ."

The map became slightly less messy, with smears mostly following major thoroughfares. Including the Rhine.

"Then we can use the same program to track it day by day, and see if any of it stopped in Düsseldorf last night," Mouse murmured.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Jill enthused. Had they been in the same room, Jack was pretty sure they would have squealed at each other like junior high schoolers.

Mouse moved the radiation map to the bigger portion of the screen, and they watched various yellow smears moving around like a chaotic weather map. Gradually some of the excess seemed to get whittled away, and –

"I'll be damned," Jack muttered. There was a straight shot from Arnhem down Route 3, right between Düsseldorf and Essen. The smear continued down Route 3, through Nuremberg, and was only about fifty miles outside of the Czech Republic.

Within their calculated search area. The truck could have stopped along the way and picked up the colonel and most of his men.

"Get me satellite on that vehicle, _now_ ," Harlan ordered, and the lead German analyst snapped to. There was a sudden presence at Jack's left shoulder, achingly familiar, and he turned without thinking. It wasn't Mac; it was John, carefully examining the screen, and the pang of disappointment Jack felt was almost physically painful.

 _Almost got him, brother. Almost._

It didn't take the Germans long to bring up satellite onto the correct coordinates, and then everyone in the room was looking at the infrared map of the highway, from about four hundred yards up.

There were a _lot_ of semis.

The satellite focused in, and the heat signatures popped up, showing the yellows, blues, oranges, and reds of the traffic. Pretty much every car on the road had a bright spot, and the analyst focused in a little, panning faster than the traffic as the entire room studied the images.

There wasn't a single semi trailer with unexplained heat in the back.

"Stop. That one," Jill's voice came over coms, and Mila signaled the German analyst.

"There."

The semi in question was not a tractor trailer, at least not in the traditional sense. It was a flatbed hauler, stacked high with various types of lumber. They could clearly see the wood, and there was nothing unusual about the load. No heat signature. No place to hide twenty men.

The cab of the truck showed there was a driver and a passenger, and of course the truck's engine and exhaust pipes were the brightest thing about it.

Beside him, John made a soft frustrated noise. "Okay. If it's not that one-"

"Then it's another," Matty finished for him. "Find me every semi that's left Plato Woods in the last forty-eight hours."

-M-

Riley did her best to ignore the blood pressure cuff. A little message window popping up from Bozer was just the distraction she needed.

 **You back after that hacker?**

Jill and her sister from another mister were more than capable of tearing Plato Woods B.V. apart joist by joist, and Riley was happy to leave them to it. She'd gone quiet as soon as they'd started that analysis, and refocused on the cruise line network. Now that she knew who she was up against, the game had changed a little.

But it still sucked, and every technique this bitch was using was still eerily like what she would have done. She'd fangirled over hackers in the past, studied their previous exploits, but this was –

This was different. This was like the woman had reached into her head and read her playbook. Some of the tactics the woman was using were things Riley hadn't actually done in the last year, which left her feeling even more uncomfortable and exposed.

Just how long had this chick been studying her? And if she knew all this, she must have been in Phoenix systems, must have gotten mission details. How in the hell could she know this stuff?

Velcro ripped loudly in the silent room as the nurse removed the pressure cuff, and Riley didn't miss the look the woman – sadly not Nurse Sophie - gave Saito, who was casually watching them around his phone. Apparently her blood pressure was still a little high, and the nurses seemed to be looking to Saito to make her put the laptop away.

He hadn't made any move to do so, and in return, she'd been a good little victim and stayed put in the bed. They were very, very close to catching Aydin at this point, and she was gonna see it through.

Riley tabbed over to the message window.

 **Yep. Still sux.**

It didn't take him long to respond.

 **Well, you're up against Anti-Ri.**

She suppressed an eye roll. **Plz no Supergirl refs kthnx**

 **Hey, don't knock that show. Lotta powerful women.**

She smirked a little. **And hot blondes?** She imagined his face while the three dots blinked, indicating he was typing.

 **Just sayin', the Anti-Ri knows all your tricks, has the keys to your secret base, and made copies of all your toys. If it was u vs u, what would you do?**

Riley let herself slump into the pillows a moment, glancing up at the nurse after she realized she'd been asked a question.

"I'm good," she said, then offered the woman a little smile, that she let slide off her face as soon as the perky young nurse's back was turned.

 **Not that simple, Boze. I'm not up against me, I'm up against a psycho who wants to murder all of us.**

A slight pause. **Have you ever met you when you've been pissed off?**

She sent him an angry face, more to make him laugh than because she was genuinely angry. She was not a murdering psycho, but she _had_ been desperate before. Like when she'd had to build a cellphone in the trunk of a car before the car stopped and the hackers in it got out and killed her.

Like when she'd been in the Phoenix data center, fighting an Organization operative for her life.

She'd gone outside her rulebook, and done what she had to do.

 **That's a good point, Boze.**

This woman was probably desperate. She was surrounded on all sides by law enforcement, and had one hell of a motivated group of people after her. She was trying to protect her team. And she was using every tool her enemy had against them.

Like this cruise line network. She knew they'd have to secure it because innocent lives were at risk. But what she probably didn't have was time to actually do anything about it. Whatever trap was on this network, it was an automated one, and while it might be complicated, it wasn't like she was babysitting it. She had way too much other shit to worry about right now.

Anti-Ri knew that Riley would try to clean it, because taking the network down would cause disruption. But not fatal disruption. It was Riley's first inclination to fix, not break, and Anti-Ri would know that.

She chewed on a little bit of dry skin on her bottom lip, then looked up at Saito. He wasn't watching her, but his eyebrows rose at the silent questioning glance she'd sent his way.

" . . . how do you do that?" she asked him, genuinely curious.

His head never moved, just his eyes, shifting from the phone up to her face without blinking. "How do I hear you stop typing?"

Oh. "Would anyone have too much heartburn if I just knock down the cruise line network altogether?"

He continued to stare at her. "Why are you asking my permission?"

She blinked at him. ". . . because this is already a giant shitshow and I don't wanna cause – you know what, you're right."

It didn't matter that it was an international incident at this point. She could without a doubt knock over this network in such a way that she could prevent any logic bombs from sabotaging the ships. Save lives now, pick up the pieces later.

She spent a few minutes writing code, then sent the little package on its way. Full ship computer reboot, complete with cache clearing to get rid of any malicious code that had already copied itself over, and no more talking to the mother ship.

Then she clicked her com. "Matty?"

"Go, Riley."

"I just isolated any malicious code on the cruise line network. The other ships'll be safe, but the company won't be booking any new cruises for a few days."

There was hardly any pause. "Good work."

Saito's eyes were still on her, and Riley cocked a brow at him. He simply shook his head and went back to his phone.

It wasn't like any of them would really understand what she did anyway, even if she explained it.

Metric shitload of potential hostages now safe, Riley transferred her attention to trying to actually catch the bitch, instead of just dealing with her traps. The hacks to the cameras, to take them out while the colonel and his men switched vehicles, were a no-go; she'd need something that would point her to specific hardware to try to track that through the half-dozen VPNs that traffic had been routed through. And the CIA hack was also not useful – she'd been very careful, and routed almost everything through Tor.

Which left Riley with not much. She went ahead and got a presence on the German's traffic cam network, setting up alerts to let her know if any more of those cameras went down, and some logging to try to track it, and then frowned at the laptop.

Anti-Ri would know she was doing all of this. It's what any law enforcement group would do.

"So what is Anti-Ri doing right now," she muttered softly to herself. What would she be doing, if she was trying to get the colonel the hell out of Dodge.

Well, if she'd already squared away the transportation, and she'd already set up some garbage intel to keep law enforcement busy, she'd be securing the next step of the escape. Proactively setting up code to hide them, or cause some other slowdown, like hacking the traffic control system of the target city and setting it up to gridlock so even if she was found, she could stop most people from getting to them.

It wouldn't stop a helicopter, though, and Anti-Ri knew they had satellite surveillance too.

So she'd be trying to hack satellites, and maybe put some monitoring on them to know when her enemies were using them. Possibly even intercept the signal and send back bad data.

And she'd be on a mobile hotspot, probably in motion herself, so her connection wouldn't be awesome.

Riley popped up a map of available satellites over Europe, then frowned. Only a couple hundred to choose from. Knowing the data was probably going over a cellular connection didn't help, because there'd be no difference between the hacker's encrypted traffic, and someone binge-watching the Handmaid's Tale over another country's VPN.

Riley pulled up the dossier on the hacker so far – still in draft – and started sifting for clues. She'd hacked the CIA, she was a UN employee which gave her a certain amount of access, so would she target military satellites, or assume they'd expect her to, and go after commercial ones instead?

 **You're quiet again.**

She tabbed over to the message window. **There's too many satellites to choose from. I need to know something about *her.* And I don't have a year to go creeping.**

The message window stayed blank for a little while, and Riley focused back on the profile that was being actively edited as she watched.

No husband. No kids. Dedicated to her career, multiple quick promotions and commendations. No familial ties to Turkey. No financial ties to Turkey. Was assigned to Turkey by her superior four years ago, which was just before whispers of a coup were becoming more than that. Before that she was on Russia.

A new document was attached to the profile, and Riley pulled it up. Comments in Hatice's personnel file that her supervisor thought she was getting a little burnt out.

So a burnt out analyst with nothing better to spend on her time on takes a shine to a plucky Turkish colonel who tacitly opposes Erdogan?

Nothing about this chick seemed lovesick. No unexplained vacations or absences that coincided with anything Aydin was doing. Literally _no_ activity that coincided with anything Aydin was doing, besides her responsibilities to monitor Turkey during the unrest, which she did.

Riley growled, and closed the document. What the hell was this chick trying to do? What was the point of all this? Why risk her life and walk away from her career for this?

 **Your com's still hot.**

Riley blinked, then tapped her microphone back to mute.

 **Thnx.**

Three little dots blinked, telling her he was typing.

 **Np. I know this isn't my thing, but can I make a suggestion?**

As if she was in any position to turn down ideas.

 **Go nuts.**

This time it took a while for more message to pop up. **The Anti-Ri may know you better than you know her, but you know the type. You were super careful last year in Greece so no one would find us. Anti-Ri will be too. But you always catch hackers for doing stupid stuff. You know, like sending an encrypted data burst at the same time every day.**

The reminder made Riley smile. Bozer was _definitely_ no hacker, and even though he'd managed to slip under Phoenix's radar temporarily with his encrypted texts to Leanna, it would have been caught eventually. The little app she wrote them randomized the traffic, making it much harder to pick out.

This chick would do the same. Riley wasn't going to tease the needle out of the haystack this way.

. . . but nothing was every _really_ random. She knew the algorithm she'd given Boze and Leanna. It ran like clockwork to calculate a different number every day based on parts of the equation changing, like location coordinates, date, the IP address Bozer's carrier assigned his phone.

Everything this chick did would have a pattern, because hackers were all about habits. Riley had written that algorithm using things she knew would change day to day to randomize his traffic. And she almost always used those data inputs for that kind of algorithm because she knew it worked, and it was hard to guess.

This chick would have those kinds of habits too. She was too careful not to. In four years, she hadn't once left a single trail of what she was doing, even when she was spending most of her time in the damn UN building.

Nearly everything she'd done, she'd done from her work desk, using her work equipment.

Riley popped up a new message window, and added Mila and Jill as participants.

 **I need to borrow you two for a second. I'm sharing my screen.**

She then opened up a new window, shared it, and got to work.

It didn't take long for Mila to catch on.

 **Isn't that one of the United Nations IP ranges?**

Riley barely paused to answer.

 **Yes.**

She was mostly onto the network before she heard her name on the com channel.

"Riley, you got something?" The voice belonged to Matty.

Of course. Agent Visser's screen was probably up on the main board.

Which was fine. She could talk and type. "Bozer does, actually. I'm checking it out. Mila, Jill, can you tag along? We're looking for any machines on the UN analyst's segment with a back door."

This Hatice chick would never have contaminated her own work laptop by using it directly to access anything related to the colonel. She would have used other machines to do her dirty work. Probably her colleagues, who were also assigned to Turkey, so if there was ever any suspicion, it would wash right off her.

There were a good hundred machines on the segment, and she, Jill, and Mila started stripping connection logs off them. Jill began aggregating them onto a spreadsheet.

"What am I looking for?"

"A bogus MAC address connecting to some of these boxes. Forget the IP address, she'll have changed that up, we need that hardware address."

This woman wouldn't have been stupid enough to connect to her colleagues' machines with hers unless she was masking it somehow. It would be way too easy to see if anyone went looking. There was a way to fake the network card's MAC address, and the algorithm to do that was very limited, because MAC addresses were issued with specific rules. It would be easy to determine which ones were randomly generated, meaning faked.

And any faked MAC address connecting to any of these boxes would absolutely be their hacker.

It only took them about ten minutes to grab the data, and Riley ran a simple query. Cell after cell on the spreadsheet become highlighted.

". . . that's about twenty machines," Mila counted. "But the logs are all over the place. Different days of the week, different times – we can't prove anything with this."

"There's an underlying pattern, but we don't need it," Riley countered. "All we needed to know was that there was one. She'll be using the same tool to mask her MAC address in every instance, and the tools all use different algorithms. If we can collect enough samples –"

"-then we can figure out which tool she's using," Jill finished. "And we can look for it in real time on the cellular networks."

The only way to catch Bozer and Leanna now was to know what algorithm Riley was using. In her case, it would be almost impossible to do that, because so many of the inputs were seemingly random. But a MAC address? Way too standardized. There were a couple dozen go-tos the hacker community typically used, and all they had to do was run a few of these fake MACs back through them to see if the tool accepted them.

On a whim, Riley picked her own favorite MAC spoofing tool. It failed.

Mila, however, got a hit in three. "She's using iproute2."

Riley didn't even need to ask. All three of them immediately starting grabbing cameras in Düsseldorf they'd already determined the hacker had hit. There were multiple bad MACs attempting connections, but only one using that particular tool. Then it was just a quick step back to see what carrier had issued the IP address.

"She's using Vodaphone," Jill piped up. "Which is unfortunate, since it's the most popular carrier in Germany."

Obviously in an attempt to hide herself in the noise. "Doesn't matter. She's manually changing up her IP address as she goes. Let's get a list."

It didn't take long to assemble that list, either. And this time the pattern was easy enough to see with her eyes.

"Exit numbers," Riley said aloud. "She's adding the exit numbers to her IP address." Every time she passed the tenth exit, whatever the number was, she added it to the end of the last string of her IP address.

Mostly it was a multiple of ten, because they'd been passing through heavily populated areas, and the exits were staggered fairly evenly.

"Can you track her?" It was Wolff's voice, and there was audible tension in it.

In answer, Mila pulled up a detailed map of Route 3, and they started doing the math.

Dot after dot appeared, in a steady trail down Route 3, and Riley went ahead and gave herself access to the next two cellular towers past the Plato truck they were tracking.

As the semi approached the edge of one tower's range and neared another, a new bogus MAC address connected, and the IP was a multiple of ten off the last one.

"If she's not on that truck, she's in a car near it," Riley confirmed.

-M-

The German analyst controlling the satellite image refocused on the lumber semi, and backed the image off a bit, so they could start watching the behavior of the cars around it.

And once Jack knew what he was looking for, it was obvious.

"It's a convoy," he said aloud, then gestured. "You got two lead cars, those two Beamers, and two on the rear." Even as they watched, one of the trailing cars passed the semi, and then the semi passed one of the lead cars.

All four cars were different colors and models. Changing up the positions reduced the chances of anyone noticing the same four cars were always around the semi.

But the heat image still stayed stubbornly dark. There was no sign of anything hinky with the load of lumber. No unexplained heat signatures, no temperature fluctuations of any kind.

"What's the weight on that truck?" Wolff asked suddenly.

A Phoenix analyst answered over the speakers. "Eighteen tons, sir."

So well under the shipping weight limit of twenty-four tons.

"An illegal lumber smuggler wouldn't underweight the truck," Harlan murmured. "They'd keep it to weight and hide the illegal lumber under legal cargo."

To Dalton's right, Matty snatched her tablet back up. "That's exactly what they're doing. Hiding the illegal cargo. How tall is that load?"

Tunne, still at Jack's left shoulder, didn't even wait for the answer. "You think the middle's hollow, and they stuffed the colonel and his men in there?"

"I do," Matty said shortly. "An insulated hidden compartment. It's a standard exfil tactic."

She wasn't wrong. Typically it was a box truck that you lined with cheap foam board insulation. Would get you past an infrared scan every time. And foam board was a very common construction material, anybody shipping wood and drywall would have plenty of it. Plus, the size of that trailer, and the size of the load –

Riley was right. They could have offloaded real wood boards, and stuffed a good fifty-sixty people on that truck, easy. Two loads, and those passengers were as good as gone. One load, if they'd used an actual box truck that was empty. Insulation would have made it hot as hell, so no telling if the passengers survived the trip, but it certainly explained how the Turks got them off the ship and out of the city without anyone noticing.

Trucks dropped off supplies for cruise ships at the docks all the time. You timed the movement of the people right, or if you stuffed them in some kinda container and used a dolly to load the truck . . .

It was smart. If it was a single truck, there was no tellin' how far the passengers could have been taken by now.

"So what's the plan? Ain't like the boys in blue can just ask 'em to pull over." The cars in the convoy would split off to cut off the police, and with all that wood, the semi was going to be damn near bulletproof.

"And a blockade or traffic reroute would be too obvious, and put the drivers in the other vehicles at risk," Matty mused. "Agent Visser, is there any less populated area within two hours' drive, assuming they stay on Route 3?"

She panned out the map, and they scanned it. "There." Tunne walked up to the screen and gestured at a green area west of Passau. "Between these two exits. No side roads near the highway, only a few residences. Plenty of cover in the trees for the tac teams."

Harlan turned and gave the Green Beret a dark look. "Will you come with me for a moment?"

Without waiting for an answer, the Dutch deputy director spun on his heels and walked to the back of the room, gesturing for the German analyst to follow. Matty didn't wait for an invitation, and Jack decided he didn't need one.

Once in the back of the room, Harlan turned on all of them. "That's the German Austrian border, not a warzone in the Afghani desert," he snapped. "The EU is not the Wild West. The time for trying to handle this quietly is over, and I will not sanction any action here that will result in threats to civilian lives."

Matty held up a hand. "I agree," she said quietly. "We have solid intel and evidence. We've identified the hacker and confirmed the intelligence leak was a CIA breach, not a mole. We don't know what other intelligence she may have taken, but we can figure that out later. Our priority right now is finding those passengers, and getting Aydin back into custody without any further loss of life." Jack didn't miss the way she stressed the last part of the sentence, and neither did Harlan.

"There is no way to safely isolate the convoy from the rest of traffic, and any evacuation notice to the residents would go over official channels."

Meaning Adyin's hacker would probably pick it up.

Matty inclined her head. "I know it's not ideal. But we don't know where's he's headed, and who might be waiting there. I don't think that Sergeant Hakan was foolish enough to sacrifice all his men for this jailbreak. They know they need reinforcements, and the longer we let this play out, the more likely he'll get them. If we can't find those passengers before he gets to his destination, then we've lost any bargaining chip to get them back."

Wolff looked conflicted, and the German analyst, who Jack was just starting to figure out was legitimately their German intelligence contact, spoke up.

"I agree with both of you. We cannot allow the suspect to reach his allies. He has already shown a willingness to threaten and kill hostages, and we cannot give him an opportunity to take any more. But if we do take him into custody, are you willing to let him go for the passengers?"

And that answer should have been obvious. _Fuck_ no. The colonel was going away for good, one way or another.

Jack knew immediately that it wasn't the answer Matty was going to give.

"If you're asking if I'm willing to take the risk of him actually getting away in order to secure the hostages, the answer is yes. And he knows it," Matty added, with a little spark of savage satisfaction in her voice. "Which means he knows we'll have to take him alive. We can use that."

The German gave her an almost blank look. "I don't understand."

"The colonel's men," Wolff said suddenly. "You're proposing we use his soldiers as leverage."

"I am," she confirmed. "We can surround the convoy, but he knows we can't risk hitting him in a firefight. His men walk if the hostages walk. He knows he'll be perfectly safe, and his men will live to try to break him out another day."

Jack scoffed. "He'll never take that deal -"

"He doesn't have a choice," she cut him off. "It's that or watch them all get cut down. His end game is to depose Erdogan. To do that he needs massive support from inside the Turkish military. No one's going to follow a leader who throws away his own soldiers. He'll lose the battle to win the war."

That was, as much as Jack didn't want to admit it, a good point. "You really think he's gonna take our word for it?"

She glanced up at Harlan, who was studying her just as carefully. "I think he'll take ours."

The Dutch deputy director gave a sharp sigh. "You're asking me to approve the release of all the suspects we captured in Düsseldorf, on his word that he'll release the hostages and his men won't take any more?"

Only then did Jack realize what Matty was actually proposing.

She meant to give Adyin her word. Herself. In person. Literally wave the white flag and go speak with the opposing general.

Matty was going to go with them, and she was asking Harlan to go, too.

"Absolutely not," Jack growled. "We'll put a few snipers into position and wing him to take him out of the fight."

She rounded on him, eyes flashing. "And what happens if they miss, Jack?"

He bared his teeth. "I won't."

"If we try to take that convoy and fail, there is nothing to stop his men from moving the hostages, or taking more to secure his release. And if we kill him, those passengers become useless. We can't take that chance."

Jack gestured sharply at the monitors in the front of the room. "And you really think, even if he gives the order for his men to stand down, that the lunatic who masterminded all of this is just gonna roll over and give up-"

"We can deal with Kadir Hakan later," she interrupted sharply, cutting him off. "He's a career soldier. He'll obey the order, at least temporarily. That's all we need."

"What if the colonel's not on the truck?" the German interrupted, before Jack could protest further.

Matty flashed Jack a warning look, that he returned tenfold.

 _We ain't done with this._

Matty rolled her eyes as she turned, but it was Harlan who replied. "We'll still have his men, and I believe Director Webber is correct. He can't afford to sacrifice them. And at this point, it shouldn't be very difficult to initiate a negotiation with Analyst Iris." He took a measured breath. "Very well. Kurt, liaise with your colleagues. See how quickly we can get military support to the area. Director Webber and I have a little explaining to do." Wolff's gaze settled on Jack, and Dalton struggled not to bristle.

"Agent Dalton, you're former Delta Force, is that correct?"

With effort he unlocked his jaw. "Yes sir."

Wolff's expression remained hard. "Work with Sterling. You two have twenty minutes to tell us how we're going to secure this convoy without endangering every driver on the Autobahn."

Jack gave the man a curt nod, and Harlan turned around and headed back to the front of the room, probably to share the plan with everyone else.

"Webber, a word?"

Dalton took a step back, and both John and the German analyst took the hint and followed Harlan. He could almost hear Matty's teeth grinding as she accompanied him to the back wall, and he also put his back to the room.

"Matty-"

"Save it, Jack," she snapped. "The decision's been made."

He crossed his arms to prevent himself from shaking the living daylights out of her, and modulated his tone. "I don't disagree with taking the convoy, Matty, all I'm sayin' is you don't need to be there when we do."

"Yes, Jack, I do," She also took a deep breath, and lowered her voice. "Aydin has the upper hand right now and he knows it. He's not going to give up his last ace without a fight. My voice on the phone isn't going to mean anything, but face to face? He'll start to question just how good his intelligence is – how good his _people_ are. We need him to do that."

"We already know how good his people are," Jack countered, fighting to keep his voice soft. "I don't know if you've noticed, but they damn near killed you once already. You are not a hundred percent right now, and that ain't a Phoenix tac team out there. I'm not gonna trust 'em with _your life_."

Her expression instantly frosted. "It's not your decision," she told him icily. "And this discussion is over. You can follow my orders or you can head back to Amsterdam."

The figurative slap in the face almost felt like a real blow, and Jack stared at her incredulously. " . . . tell me we're not gonna do this dance again . . . "

He probably should have expected it; her injuries, the hostages, having agents down - and not just any agent, but _Mac_ down - but surely she wasn't going to do this now, surely -

Her lips twisted, and something far too close to contempt flashed in her eyes. "That's up to you, Jack."

And then she walked away.

-M-

You waited a long time! I wanted so much to get the big fight done before the new season of MacGyver, but it's just not going to happen. However, next chapter will definitely be that last, terrible cliffhanger I warned you about. Half of this has not been beta-ed, as my wonderful beta reader is indisposed, so sorry for any typos – they are mine, all mine.

In summary – Riley and the dream team finally caught Liris, and tracked down how the colonel got away. He's in their sights, and Jack has been tasked with coming up with a battle plan to take the colonel alive. Much to his unhappiness, Matty plans to come along for the ride, because there are still over a hundred hostages and right now, Phoenix has no way of figuring out where they are. And Matty and Jack are definitely fighting about something . . . I wonder if it has to do with Chechnya . . . I wonder if I'll explain that next chapter too . . .

As for Mac, he's still surrounded by surgeons fighting to save his life, while Bozer keeps vigil outside.

(I'll wager, based on that summary, that every single one of you can guess what's going to happen next chapter. I'll write it as quickly as I can, I promise.)


	14. Chapter 14

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

The op started exactly the way they'd planned it.

It only took two cars to fully disrupt traffic. One asshole in the passing lane to slow it down, and one asshole in the driving lane, basically pacing the asshole in the left. The two German operatives perfectly replicated the driving conditions on almost every American highway in the entire US of A. Together, over the course of about twenty miles, they were able to put about thirty yards between the semi's convoy and the traffic behind it.

The traffic in front, they couldn't do quite as much about. Knowing roughly how heavy the semi was, Jill had calculated its safe stopping distance, and that's where the Germans rolled out the big guns. Two RMMV HX2 military trucks, one blocking each lane, trundling directly out of the treeline. They had their German contact, Kurt, to thank for knowing exactly where the German po-po had created their hiding places when looking for anything suspicious moving between the now-defunct border of Germany and Austria.

Behind the convoy, a third truck made its way out of the treeline. This one was smaller, basically a jeep with a fifty cal mounted on the back. No one was expecting the Turks to try to ram their way out the back – there was no way the semi could turn around in the restricted space.

Jack and Sterling had put soldiers on the ground as well, to get any trapped civilians safely out of the line of fire. Exactly as expected, the two lead cars of the convoy braked hard and took up defensive positions in front of the semi. Riley watched via satellite as the passengers of those cars got out and took cover, but they didn't open fire, and they let the men and women in camo start spiriting the few civilians in front of the convoy to safety behind the HX2s.

Riley would cheerfully have given up coffee for a month if it would have gotten her a second monitor. She was forced to toggle back and forth between windows to keep track of everything, first by satellite image, then by infrared.

Despite her limited view, she could see that the trailing cars had done the same as the lead cars, protecting the rear entrance of the semi. Those Turks also exited their vehicles, taking cover behind the engine blocks and readying themselves to lay down cover fire.

And then . . . they all just sat there, apparently with their thumbs up their asses, and stared at each other.

Riley watched tensely, listening to coms as the men counted off and moved into position. The infrared image showed them fanning out around the convoy, and she watched the two bright orange dots she knew were Jack and Tunne take up positions in the treeline to the west of the convoy.

Beside her, Saito leaned forward, studying the images. He didn't touch the bed, and he didn't touch her. "Hey, Ri, can you get me on a channel with just John?"

She toggled over to the appropriate window and made a quick adjustment, then gave him a nod.

Saito straightened and tapped his ear. "Yo, partner." He paused a second, then gave a half-laugh. His expression, however, was somber.

"Yeah, I know. I owe you gyoza and beer." Another pause. "Listen, don't forget I'm not out there to save your ass right now. You watch your back."

Riley did her best not to eavesdrop, focusing on the heat signatures of Team Archer as they moved in. On the main com channel, she could hear the echo of someone addressing the convoy in Turkish over a bullhorn.

Demanding an unconditional surrender, probably. Which no one believed was going to happen.

"I know, man. Do the best you can." Saito huffed out a sigh. ". . . back atcha." Then he turned back to her. "You can put him back on the main freq now. Thanks."

"No problem." She isolated John's coms and reassigned the broadcasting frequency, and right on cue, both the satellite and infrared images flickered. At nearly the same time, one of Riley's alerts went off.

"Looks like I'm up," she muttered, and toggled over to her connection with the satellite.

 _Oh no you don't, bitch. You're in_ my _house now._

No matter how good this Hatice Iris was, she was on a shitty hotspot, and even if she had the skills, she just didn't have the bandwidth to go toe to toe with Phoenix.

"Hacker's taken the bait," Riley declared into her mic. "Sending the bogus data now."

-M-

In cover of trees, on the west side of the highway, Jack settled into position, easing behind the optics on the Haenel RS9. He'd rather have a Barrett, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and he was lucky he was handed decent gear at all. It wasn't a bad rifle, and he used it to scan the semi in detail, trying to find any seam or indicator of how the wood load could be opened.

There had to be some way to do it from the inside, and without heavy machinery, but the natural patterns to the stacked two by eights made it almost impossible to tease out.

On his right, Tunne was doing the same. He surprised Jack when he spoke, his voice low.

"Hey Mom. I know I shoulda called, but I got caught up playin' with my friends."

Based on the tone, he was not speaking to his actual mother. He was also clearly not on the main op channel.

"Damn right. Always nice to hear from you, but we're kinda in the middle of something." Just like Delta, Green Berets were trained not to engage in long conversations when they were behind the scope, and John had leaned up slightly away from the rifle.

He paused for a few moments, and Jack turned his head just slightly, sending a glare his way. "If that's Si, tell him to quit mother hennin' us."

John ignored him. "I hear ya. God knows _this_ washed up has-been sure won't." He shot Jack an evaluative look. "I definitely drew the short straw on babysitting duty."

Dalton made a small adjustment to which finger he'd extended along the top of the trigger cage, and Tunne grinned despite himself.

"Listen, we're about to piss these fuckers right off. If any of 'em are still on the loose, they're gonna try for a cheap win. You two stay above ground, you hear me?"

Saito apparently agreed to John's terms, and then the other agent leaned up a little, and adjusted the com in his ear.

Jack gave him a sour look. "Who's babysittin' who here? Ain't that my line?"

Tunne sniffed, and gave the com one more wiggle. Then he settled back into position. "Dalton, I'm only gonna say this once. We're takin' this guy alive. Period. If you can't keep your shit together, I'm putting one in your vest and dragging you back to the kiddie pool. You copy?"

Jack put his attention back on the semi, which showed no signs of suddenly opening and expelling their target.

"Five by five."

A bullet to the head was a kindness he wasn't interested in dispensing. To any of them.

Whoever was on the bullhorn tried again to get a surrender, managing to actually sound pissed off this time, and there was no response from the semi. Jack estimated that only a few minutes had gone by, which could mean they were tryin' to come up with an escape plan. And there was no telling what kind of hardware they might have in that semi with them. Or in the cars.

Jack reached up for his radio. "Archer Archer, anybody got clear line of sight into those vehicles, over?"

There was a brief pause. "No, but their hacker is definitely trying to take away our eyes." Riley didn't sound terribly upset about it, and she'd replied on Phoenix coms, not the radio. "I'm still feeding her bad data. All she can see are six men on either side of the convoy."

There were three times that number of German soldiers, ready to pop gas and move in on the men in the cars.

Faking the satellite data was key to their plan. The colonel would think they simply hadn't had time to do more than rally the nearest garrison, and send the same limited number of operators they'd had back at the lock. If he was going to make a break for it, the driver of the semi would choose the west side, where the shoulder was both wider and more gently sloped. They had spikes in the tall grass ready to take out the tires, and then Archer would move in.

Once the men were well and truly pinned, the helo carrying Wolff and Weber, currently flying in circles a mile away, would be permitted to land, and they'd toss a walkie to Aydin. He could roll over and surrender or watch his men get slaughtered. Jack honestly didn't care which.

Either way, this encounter was ending with the colonel headed for a hole so deep and so dark that he'd _beg_ someone to hang him up on the wall like he'd done to Mac.

The only part Jack didn't like was the part where Kadir Hakan and Clarice got to walk. Riley wouldn't let them out of her sight, but it still rubbed him all kinds of the wrong way. Both of them had laid hands on his teammates. His boss. His partner. His little girl. Just the thought of them getting another crack at the people he cared about made Jack's blood run cold.

These guys were too good to mess around with. If the hacker or the sergeant slipped their net a second time, the next time Jack saw them, it'd be from the wrong end of a sniper's bullet.

"Archer Archer, everyone west of the convoy, sound off, over."

Sterling and his boys started the round, and Jack let John handle their call-in. Last thing they needed was some hero breaking position before the colonel made his move -

"Jack . . ." It was Riley, on coms. "Four people just showed up on the heatmap - I didn't see where they came from. They're at your nine o'clock-"

That was all the warning Jack got before the hiss of an AT-4 rocket informed him the plan had just gone to shit, and the ass end of one of the RMMV HX2 military trucks went up in a fireball.

Immediately after, there was a second hiss, and the truck that had pulled in to block the convoy's rear took a direct hit.

The radio erupted with noise at nearly the same moment, and Jack sensed more than saw or heard Tunne break position to get a bead on the origin of the rockets' exhaust trails. Jack took a measured breath, let out half, and fired. He put two rounds into the cab of the semi, and confirmed blood spatter on the inside of the windshield. Then he abandoned the sniping rifle, yanking the sling of the MK16 over his shoulder as he sprinted after John.

"Somebody get those tires!" he shouted into the radio, then released the button and slammed to a halt against a half-grown tree, about ten yards from where Tunne had just taken cover behind some underbrush.

"Talk to me, Ri!"

The treeline wasn't terribly dense, but it wasn't old growth, and there were plenty of saplings and scrub that made it easy to hide, and hard to move quietly. The rockets couldn't have been launched from more than thirty yards away, but Jack couldn't hear a damn thing over the firefight that had just kicked up around the convoy. Even the com in his ear seemed muffled.

"They broke into pairs. Two of them are dead ahead of you, moving away. Another one's heading towards the convoy, the last one's – he's maybe twenty yards away, on your left-"

An extremely precise burst of automatic fire confirmed that statement, shredding the trunk of the small tree in front of Jack, and he and Tunne both hit the deck.

That was cover fire, not sniper fire. Someone was tryin' to slow them down.

Which meant that pair that was on the run likely had another couple roman candles they intended to set off. If they managed to clear either the front or rear of the convoy, one of the smaller vehicles would have room to bail, and this would turn into a goddamn car chase on the Autobahn.

Jack sent a short burst in the general direction the shots had come from, quite sure that whoever had been there was already on the move. He wasn't planning on hitting anything – he just wanted to control the direction of the movement. Jack had no decent cover for ten yards, and until he got a bead on the shooter, he was essentially pinned down.

Tunne wasn't.

Jack sent another quick burst towards the underbrush, then made eye contact with the Green Beret. He waved his hand in a quick loop, then gestured with two fingers towards the origin of the rockets.

 _Go around and deal with those fuckers._

He and John were the furthest back from the road, which meant the closest to the party crashers. They'd just announced their presence, but the two guys with the rockets would have to contend with the Germans coming at them from the road, and Tunne approaching from the south. All they needed to do was drive them far enough into the trees that they didn't have a clear shot at the convoy.

Tunne glared at him, clearly not happy with that plan, but then Jack saw the same thoughts cross his face. John scowled, but he gave a short nod and began a quick reverse belly-crawl. In seconds he'd melted into the underbrush.

Jack didn't even give him time to fully disappear before he sprinted the ten yards to his next piece of cover, and bullets chewed up the undergrowth around him. He felt a brief tug on his right side, his vest shifting, but there wasn't any burn associated with it, and he slid the last few feet behind the little copse of trees, and finally caught sight of motion, about fifteen yards out.

In his ear, his com popped. "Jack, he's at your two o'clock-"

"I got him," he muttered softly, then flinched back as a single bullet whipped past his face.

Whoever was out there with him, the guy was interested in ending this confrontation as quickly as possible. He knew he'd let one of them slip away, and he knew exactly what would happen to his buddies if John made it to their position.

"Surprise, asshole," he growled under his breath, and he tore a frag grenade free from his belt. Jack then fired off a burst one-handed at the downed tree his target was hiding behind, and armed and tossed the grenade with his other.

He watched it sail through the air, the arc good, and just before it cleared the log, he fired another burst as a distraction. Then he ducked back behind his skinny little trees and readied himself.

The grenade popped two seconds later, and Jack was instantly up and charging the position. Dirt was still coming down when he hopped over the log, and he spotted dark green camo, lying about four yards away.

Dalton put two into it, and the fabric gave in a way that told him it was empty.

He spun, realizing the only other place the guy could have scurried without him seeing was the little depression in the ground behind him, and he used the barrel of the MK16 to knock the raised sidearm away on pure reflex. It went off, and he felt the bite on the outside of his right shoulder. The soldier beneath him didn't miss a beat; he reached up and grabbed the MK16, which was still attached to Jack's body via its strap, and he pointed the barrel harmlessly over his shoulder before using it to yank Jack off balance. A well-placed foot levered him up and over, and Jack sailed through the air, landing flat on his back behind the Turk.

All the air in his lungs came whooshing out, and Jack got his eyes open in time to see his own MK16 coming down for his face. Jack blocked it, coughing and gasping for air, and the Turk attempted to wrap the strap around his arms and neck. Dalton reached up and unclipped the sling, and the weapon suddenly falling free tugged the Turk off balance. While his left hand was at his right shoulder, Jack yanked his tac knife from its sheath and he rolled, swiping it where the Turk's face should have been.

The blade passed through empty air, and then Jack was on his feet, crouched, staring at the Turk, who was in nearly the same position only a few feet away.

Jack recognized him instantly. If the sergeant did, he gave no indication; he knew the assault rifle had been thrown too far for either of them to easily recover so he calmly pulled his own knife. Jack swapped his from his left hand to his right with a feral grin.

"Was hopin' to run into you again," he growled, and then he lunged, again aiming for Kadir Hakan's face.

The _Bordo Bereliler_ dodged effortlessly, barely shifting, and didn't take Jack's invitation to move in on him. Clearly the Turk knew that move. Instead, he swapped his knife into his left hand, and edged forward just enough to force Jack to give ground. It put them both onto firm footing, in a small clearing in the underbrush.

"Why is that?" the Turk asked, almost tonelessly, and his left hand flickered out deftly, seeming to move with an almost casual slowness despite the speed at which the blade sliced through the air. Jack obligingly gave more ground, knowing he was the one now being forced in a specific direction.

Away from the assault rifle. Away from where John had gone. Away from Hakan's fellow soldiers.

Quickly ending this confrontation was out. Now the Turk was interested in keeping him occupied, and he kept them in close enough quarters that Jack didn't have time or room to draw his own sidearm.

Which was fine by Jack. He didn't fucking need it.

"There's somethin' I didn't get to tell ya, back in Turkey last year."

Hakan simply stared at him, patiently waiting for his opening, and Jack let his knife trace a random little pattern in the air. He set his feet for another lunge and watched the Turk shift his weight slightly in response.

"I'm not really left handed."

The slightest flicker of confusion crossed his opponent's face, and Jack struck, feigning a right cross with his fist, rather than using the knife to slice, then following it with a left jab that didn't land, but did force the Turk's counter-attack to be lower, a body slice.

The type of armor Jack was wearing was ballistic armor, meaning it was designed to stop a bullet and spread the force of that impact across a wide area. Spreading force out over a wide area was not very useful when the force was being applied by the tip of a knife, meaning his vest was great for stopping even anti-personnel rounds, but shit at stopping a stabbing blade.

But the Turk wasn't positioned to stab – he was positioned to slice, and he wasn't able to slice through the kevlar. Jack trapped Hakan's left arm between them, using his own right arm to deflect the Turk's, and jammed his leg between the other soldier's, hooking the leg he'd forced the Turk to put his weight on.

But the Maroon Beret kept his feet, tangling his blade into the cut-resistant straps on Jack's vest, and Jack realized he was about to have his own weight off-shifted, just as he'd tried to do to the sergeant.

Jack couldn't help the grin as he slammed his forehead into the Turk's face.

Hakan fell back onto his ass, unable to keep hold of his knife, and Jack pressed his attack despite his own less-than-clear vision. His slice at the man's face was hastily deflected, and then Jack went for a chest stomp but came up empty as the slightly smaller man squirmed sideways at the last moment, trying and failing to push himself back to his feet. Dalton followed with a left backhand and connected, and the Turk rolled with the strike and came up just out of range.

Somehow, when he rose warily back to his feet, he was holding his goddamned knife, which was no longer tangled up in Jack's vest.

Dalton shifted his knife to his left hand, and Hakan wiped the blood out of his eye with the heel of his thumb. The head strike had cut the skin of his forehead, just over his right eyebrow.

"You've been practicing," he observed, his voice utterly unruffled in a way that weirdly reminded Jack of Samantha Cage.

Right. This asshole was Mac's shadow. The interrogator.

"Nah." Jack moved in again and this time it was the sergeant who gave ground, but not enough of it to let Jack pull his sidearm. "I don't gotta practice movie quotes. That shit's natural as breathin'." The Turk tried to take advantage of the tree roots behind Jack, force him to lose his footing, but he'd clocked them when Hakan had rolled, and danced nimbly around them.

"Is it," Hakan murmured, and this time the objective of the attack was definitely a stab. He didn't step in closely enough that Jack could catch his arm, so Jack dodged back and batted the man's wrist away, and Hakan yanked himself out of range of the retaliatory swipe.

"Yep. I'd'a gone with good ol' Bruce, but he was never much into knife fights. So you get the Princess Bride."

Granted, he couldn't even remember the name of the lead actor, but he'd seen the damn flick so many times the whole script was burned into his brain. Riley had loved that movie growing up – and not for the kissing parts.

No, it was the fencing fight between the Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo Montoya. They'd re-enacted that fight on the living room furniture enough times that even Diane had probably memorized that scene.

Dalton and Kadir swapped positions in the clearing, mostly feigning, and Jack realized he'd officially lost any advantage that head strike had given him. The Turk was now fully recovered from the hit, and seemingly just as determined to keep him talking – thus occupied.

"And you are the hero in this narrative? You believe you've saved your princess?"

Jack bared his teeth. "Dude, you _never_ shoulda touched her-"

"Is that what she told you I did?" the man murmured, and in the very next moment Jack missed losing his left eye by less than two millimeters. The Turk had taken a page from his book, mixing hand to hand with the knife tactics, and Jack had to take a deep slice to the outside of his right forearm to avoid a far more dangerous wound to his throat.

It burned, and Jack felt his fingertips immediately start to tingle. God _damnit_. He was baiting him. And he was fucking good at it.

"Hear that gunfire? All you did is piss her off, and it's your colonel out there payin' the price for your fuck-up," Jack snarled softly. Two could play this game. And if he was about to lose the use of his right hand, he needed to wrap this up in a hurry.

Hakan gave him a dry, crooked smile, one that Jack was unable to wipe off his face with another attack. Neither managed to draw blood, and both flinched as a rocket exploded, not far away.

"Angus said much the same. Tell me, did you reach him in time?"

Jack let his fury flash across his eyes, hoping to lure the interrogator in. The sergeant took the bait, but not the way Jack wanted.

The smirk melted off Hakan's face, and his voice was almost gentle. "It would have meant everything to him, to have you beside him at the end."

 _\- instead of sittin' there all alone, on a semi-sinkin' ship, waiting for help that already shoulda been there –_

 _I shoulda been there._

Guilt – and rage - blurred his vision, and Jack charged him with a roar.

The Turk was clearly expecting it, trying to goad him into that very foolish attack - but no one did it quite like they did it in Texas.

Jack put his head down and threw all his weight at the other soldier, using the roots behind him as a launch point, and exactly like he knew Hakan would, the man pivoted, intent on letting him pass by just like a rodeo clown facing down a bull. The Turk's knife would enter the left side of Jack's neck and sever every major blood vessel in reach, and then Hakan would yank back the blade and rip out the lot. Jack would die very quickly.

Not like Mac.

Even that thought wasn't enough to disrupt his body. It was muscle memory, borne of far too many brawls in far too close of combat. Like he'd done so many times, Jack shortened his next stride, then pushed off with his left leg, bowling into the other man slightly faster than expected, lower, and at an angle. The knife that was headed for Jack's exposed throat was knocked off target by the body blow, high enough that it just dragged through the hair on the back of his head, and Jack slammed Hakan into the forest floor, aiming for a spot three feet below the actual surface of the ground.

The Turk's head smashed into the dirt, and both his arms were knocked outwards with the force of it. Hakan brought them back up, an attempt to protect his own face and neck, and Jack then used his right hand – still gripping his knife - and drove it home, deep into the soft, unprotected tissue of Kadir Hakan's left armpit.

Hakan's eyes went wide, and blood stained his teeth as he barked out a short cough. Jack blocked a hastily thrown punch and leaned back only far enough to get the leverage needed to angle the knife and thrust again, and the body beneath him spasmed when the blade finally found his heart.

Remarkably, the Turk didn't show any sign of the pain, just blank, stunned surprise, and Jack felt his lips stretch far enough to split his face.

"Since you seem to like leavin' people to bleed, thought I'd show my appreciation." It came out between clenched teeth. "You can thank Riley for teachin' me that move."

Jack pushed himself up and off the Turk, using Hakan's ruined chest as a shove-off point, and stalked away from the dying man without a backwards glance. His radio was squawking in one ear, his coms in the other, and Jack clapped his left hand onto his freely bleeding arm, scanning the ground for his missing combat rifle.

He registered his name, somewhere in the chatter, and the first bullet struck just above the small of his back.

The second and third were progressively higher, and to the right, and the impact – then the pain – twisted him off his feet. He fell heavily onto his right shoulder, pinning his weakened right arm under his body, and Jack tried desperately to blink through the dim curtain that softly draped itself over everything.

He managed to suck down a sad little breath, then swallowed, and he was distantly surprised that he didn't taste any blood. Whether they were armor piercing or not, the rounds packed a hell of a wallop. He never heard the footsteps, but he picked out motion, someone approaching him. The shape stopped, then seemed to shrink, and Jack coughed and made a concerted effort to roll onto his back.

Whoever it was in the clearing with him helpfully shot him in the chest.

Jack grunted in pain, and a second round hit him, right in the gut. He tried to curl up, protect himself, but the next bullet went high, almost up to his collarbone, and he felt a lightning sharp pop as it shifted.

He heard someone yell, but it was distant. There was a constant, irritating buzzing in his ears, and he couldn't catch his breath.

 _Jack, ol' boy, you better get your shit together, or it's game over._

Something blocked out the sky, and Jack focused on a face, framed by dark hair that was pulled back in a light blue scarf.

A woman.

Her lips were moving, she was yelling at someone, and Jack drew another open-mouthed gasp, and took another round to the chest for his trouble. He felt his collarbone shift a little further, and then she was standing right over him.

She didn't shoot him again, she just loomed over him, still shouting, and finally sound started permeating back into his skull. It took him far too long to realize she wasn't speaking English.

And for some reason . . . that was just fuckin' hilarious.

Jack stared up at her, and he started to laugh.

It was Clarice. Aydin's hacker was fucking screaming at him, and all her rage, all her righteous fury –

Didn't mean a goddamn thing. She was going to yell herself hoarse, and then she was going to kill him, and he was going to die not having the slightest damn idea what her shitfit was all about.

She was probably talking on her own team's coms, actually. Trying to shout over the sound of her colonel getting screwed. Maybe passing along that he'd just killed their second in command. Jack wondered if he'd bled out by now, or if Hakan was still just alive enough to hear her.

She said something, then, a word caught his attention, and when she saw him refocus on her, she crouched over him, shoving the muzzle of her gun under his chin.

"You're going to pull the men back from the trucks," she snarled softly. "Radio them you've seen more rockets, and their position is not secure."

Jack managed a sarcastic grimace. "Tell you . . . what, honey . . . how about . . . you go to hell."

The hacker cocked her head to the side, then she deliberately dragged the barrel of the gun down his chin and across his throat, scraping his adam's apple before continuing on to his chest. When he didn't respond, she fired a round, point blank.

Jack couldn't bite back a cry of pain, and he honestly wasn't sure if it had penetrated the armor or not.

There was a flash of savage victory in her dark eyes. "Give the order, or I'll make the little fool listen while I kill you."

Riley.

Riley could hear. On coms. She might even have eyes. She knew what was happening.

His next breath was unsteady, and Aydin's hacker shoved the gun, barrel first, into the slug she'd just put into his vest. He managed to keep his response down to a pained grunt. He could hear voices, on his com and on the radio, but he tuned them out, staring the woman down.

There was no way in hell he was giving that order. If she was desperate enough to ask him, it meant that things weren't going Aydin's way.

"You'd prefer that I leave you alive, and make you listen while the men tear _her_ apart?" The woman's voice dripped acid. "Now that you mention it, I think I like that way better too."

"Ain't gonna happen," he grated out. "War's over sweetheart . . . you lost."

He thought she was going to pull the trigger, but instead she dragged the gun lower, straddling him, and pressed it uncomfortably firmly into his crotch. Her sharp eyes never left his. The threat was obvious; give the order or take a bullet where there was no armor. Jack picked up his head a little, glaring at her, then let it fall back to the ground as the world spun.

He'd seen what he needed to see.

"Oh, it's not over, _sweetheart_ ," she corrected him, and then angled the barrel of the gun until Jack flinched. "It will _never_ be over. Not until every one of you pays for what you did to him. I started with your director . . ." and she pressed the gun in, just a little further, "and then your partner . . . and now you."

He felt himself smirk. _Wrong on all three counts, bitch_. Then Jack yelped, as she indicated that she didn't appreciate his response. He turned the noise into a fairly passable chuckle. "Thanks, but . . . already got me a gun there . . . that shoots . . . way better."

Her eyes narrowed in rage, and he heard her pull the trigger, heard the hammer and firing pin cycle through the process of lining up to strike the cartridge.

He hadn't heard the shots, not all of 'em. But he hadn't needed to hear them to count them. And he didn't hear one now. Instead, he heard the click of an empty chamber. Her eyes, still fixed on his, widened a little in surprise.

Jack gave her a dark grin. "Mine don't . . . run outta ammo . . ."

The problem with easily concealable weapons was that the magazine was a lot smaller. You sacrificed bullet count for size. He'd have explained that to her if she hadn't picked it up to see for herself before growling in frustration and hurling it at his face. In her anger, she missed him entirely, and that only served to enrage her further.

She pushed herself to her feet, probably to find another gun, but he already had. His own sidearm, that he'd never gotten a chance to pull in his fight with Hakan. And she wasn't even looking, didn't see him unholster it at all. His right arm was dangerously weak, he could barely wrap his fingers around the grip, but he was still able to balance his elbow on the ground and raise the nine mil high enough to target her.

The woman had time to kick it aside, but she didn't; she wasn't a soldier, and she froze, instead. Even the small motion of raising the weapon reminded him his collarbone was dislocated – if not outright broken – and his expression slipped into a grimace. The hacker sneered, even as she half-heartedly raised her hands in surrender.

"Arrest me, then." Her voice was like ice. "Bring me to America. And when you hear that I've escaped, run to the little fool. She'll already be dead."

For the first time, there was something on her face besides calculated anger.

It was hatred. Pure, unadulterated hated.

Her sneer turned up at the corners, and she backed up several steps. He was in no condition to get up and follow.

And she knew it.

"And when I finally take her life, she will _thank me_ for ending the pain."

She was never going to stop trying to get revenge. She was never going to stop coming after them.

Coming after Riley.

The hacker dropped her hands with a snort, still backing away.

He looked her dead in the eye, and pulled the trigger.

Even shooting from the hip, essentially, he couldn't miss at that range, and Jack groaned as the recoil reverberated around his aching chest. He still couldn't catch his breath, and he knew his right arm was out of commission. It was the collarbone on the same side, at least he had a working left arm –

" _DALTON_! Goddammit, respond!"

He moaned several curses as he picked up his head, confirming the crumpled form on the other side of the clearing was indeed dead. "'m still here -"

There was hardly a pause. "How bad you hit?" It was Saito, his voice clipped and professional. No indication that he'd just watched via satellite while Jack got his ass handed to him by a computer nerd.

Jack glared up at the sky, dappled between all the leaves above him. "Can't tell . . ."

"Can you move?"

Jack thought about that a second, trying to decide if he should be pissed off that Si clearly didn't care about the aforementioned ass handing, or concerned that yet another overly persistent motherfucker was about to come into the clearing and finish him off.

"Stay put, you dumb . . . son of a bitch," another voice ground out, sounding not much better than he did, and Jack let his head fall back against the dirt and did exactly that.

" _Kuso,_ bakayarou! You okay?!"

Judging by his tone, Saito was _definitely_ not talking to him. And suddenly his previous question made sense – John was clearly in trouble, or Si would never have slipped back into his native tongue. Jack's Japanese was a little rusty – hell, he'd never been close to fluent – but he was pretty sure Si'd just called Tunne-

"No I'm not okay, I . . . ow, _shit_ \- caught a fuckin' rocket backblast in the face," John growled, and Jack winced a little on his behalf. He also started thinking about trying to move. John's voice was still harsh, and even over the ringing in his ears Jack could hear the pain in it. "I don't think I got eyebrows anymore."

The next voice on coms couldn't have sounded less sympathetic. "Tunne, are you mobile?"

While he was willing to swear at his partner, for their boss, John kept it professional. "Yes ma'am. I'm oscar mike to Dalton. My guys are down, rockets won't be a problem anymore."

Jack ceased thinking about getting up. It sounded like John was okay, even if he wasn't happy about it.

"When you get to Jack, stay put. We'll send medical to you."

Jack snorted aloud. _Fat fuckin' chance of that, Webber._

He knew damn well what the next phase of the mission entailed. Once the fighting was driven back to the last pocket of resistance – which would almost certainly be the semi – the plan was to have the helo touch down, toss a walkie to Aydin, and have Matty and Wolfie ask him all nice-like to roll over in return for his men being left alive.

And since two of Aydin's presumably favorite people were lying dead in the clearing with him, Jack was pretty sure the colonel was going to tell them to go to hell. The original plan was predicated on the idea that they had something to offer Aydin. Even over the sound of his own wheezing, Jack could hear the firefight was winding down.

That probably meant they hadn't left the colonel much. This had last stand written all over it. One last effort to take down the oppressors, and go down in history as a martyr.

Matty had to know that.

And just because she did, it wouldn't change a damn thing.

Jack picked up his head again, testing the waters, and the clearing tilted disagreeably to the right. By the time he'd gotten it more or less level again, there was an embarrassing level of noise coming through the underbrush. He'd gotten himself into a half-sitting position, cradling his right arm to baby the collarbone, before John finally stumbled into view.

The former Delta stared up him, and his smartass comment about disgracing the Green Berets died in his throat.

"You look like shit, dude."

Probably not the best thing to say where Saito could overhear, but he'd sure as hell find out about it eventually.

John wasn't kidding when he said he'd taken a backblast to the face. It was red and angry looking, and his eyes were narrowed, either from the pain of keeping them open, or because he was supremely unamused. The top of his uniform shirt was a little toasted, as was the collar of the vest, but he was moving okay. When he spoke, his voice sounded even worse than before.

"Look who's talking."

Jack cracked a little grin. "Can you? Look, that is?"

John scowled and knelt stiffly beside him, then put a hand on the vest. It felt like the equivalent of getting hit in the chest with a mallet.

"Good enough. Stop whining, ya big baby."

Jack hadn't been aware that he'd made a sound, and ever cognizant that they were on coms, he released his right arm – very carefully, and in full view of Tunne, who seemed to think it wasn't a great idea – and signaled to him silently.

 _Let's head back to the rally point._ Which was right on the edge of the trees near the convoy.

John simply shook his head.

Jack glared at him and repeated the visual order.

John made a gesture that indicated he thought Jack was retarded, and held out his hands to see the arm.

Dalton shook his head. "Collarbone's busted."

"Your whole goddamn upper body is busted," Tunne corrected him, quietly. He also started digging in his vest. "Did you fucking _try_ to catch every slug? This isn't baseball."

Still, the Green Beret helped him sit up all the way, and Jack grimaced and clenched his teeth to keep from giving it away to everyone listening on coms. Definitely a couple busted ribs. But he didn't taste any blood, and even though he was wheezing, it wasn't any worse. John gave him another evaluatory look. Then he reached up and clicked off his coms.

Jack gingerly set his right arm in his lap and did the same. "Dude, that's an ambush out there waitin' to happen, and I ain't trustin' Wolff's guys to protect her."

"Jack, my face feels like I put it on a fuckin' barbeque grill. I don't know if I can shoot straight further than about ten feet away, and your right arm's a damn disgrace. If you're right, we are worse than useless out there."

Jack's com clicked. "Uh . . . you guys still okay?"

It sounded like Bozer.

"I need to be there to call it." Jack wasn't going to accept no for an answer, and John clearly saw it on his face, messed up eyes or no. "I'll be your eyes, man, but we're _both_ blind if we stay out here. Now get me the hell up."

Tunne stared at him through his squinty eyes, then he shook his head with a curse and tapped his ear. "We're good, Boze. Stayin' put as ordered."

It sounded pretty final, and Dalton stared the man down as he made no move to silence his com again or offer him a hand up. Instead, he finished pulling a clotting bandage from his vest, and motioned that he wanted access to the arm.

Jack didn't fight with him – it was gonna need stitches, easy, if not outright surgery, and despite the pain, Jack knew it was the right move. John seemed to take the acceptance as some kind of sign, because he started talking as he ripped the plastic open.

"Riley, I gotta patch this guy up, it's gonna get loud. I'm going off coms for a sec."

Once he had, Jack opened his mouth, only to have John shake his head. "No, Jack. We're staying and waiting for medical."

"Last I checked, I'm your goddamn boss."

Tunne gently moved Jack's arm into a position he could wrap it. "Last I checked, you're not stupid enough to put yourself into a position where you could become a hostage, or worse, a casualty. We're staying put."

There was no replying once the QuikClot hit – Jack could barely keep from screaming. John worked quickly, getting the compression bandage full coverage over the slice, and he tied it off pretty tight, just under Jack's elbow. The fuzzy curtain came back, briefly, dulling everything but the chattering on the radio, telling Jack the helo landed, telling him the support agents and 'Momma' and 'Poppa' had disembarked the bird.

He'd mostly gotten his breathing back down to 'slower than hyperventilating' speed, and was considering arguing his position for a third time, when there was an almighty blast from the direction of the convoy.

-M-

I know, I promised you an update and a major cliffhanger, and I didn't deliver. I'm actually tied up with other projects this week and know I'll have very little time for writing this week, and it's been far too long since the last update, so consider this the first half of Chapter 14, and expect the second half next week!


	15. Chapter 15

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

Matty had never been more relieved to hear either of their voices.

" _Kuso,_ bakayarou! You okay?!" Judging by his tone, Saito was feeling exactly the same way. He'd lapsed into Japanese earlier, trying to raise his partner on coms, and if she wasn't mistaken, he'd just called Tunne-

"No I'm not okay, I . . . ow, _shit_ \- caught a fuckin' rocket backblast in the face." Her agent didn't sound great, but at least he was responding again. "I don't think I got eyebrows anymore."

If he was worried about eyebrows, he probably wasn't at death's door. "Tunne, are you mobile?" Her tablet was still linked to the infrared feed Riley had set up, but she'd lost track of who was where. All she could really tell was that it looked like part of the forest was on fire, and the area around the convoy was a literal hot zone.

"Yes ma'am." Much more professional, and a little stronger than before. "I'm oscar mike to Dalton. My guys are down, rockets won't be a problem anymore."

That was both good news and bad. "When you get to Jack, stay put. We'll send medical to you."

He acknowledged, and then the com traffic cleared up enough that she could focus on the radio. The Germans had secured most of the convoy. The semi itself was the last pocket of resistance; the men inside had excellent cover. But the truck itself wasn't going anywhere, ever again. The colonel was well and truly boxed in.

Harlan was on the mic on his helmet, speaking to the pilot, and the woman gave a short nod. Finally, their lazy left-hand turn straightened out. If Jack had been in the bird, instead of on the ground getting repeatedly shot, he'd have been making NASCAR jokes for the past ten minutes.

Matty Weber was fairly certain the Dutch deputy director was not a car racing fan. She had no idea what the man did to release stress, but he actually looked a little more relaxed in his flight harness than he had on the ground, and once again she reminded herself to go back and really study his military record. He looked almost as much at home in the helo as Folami did.

Then again, Leo was able to look comfortable lounging on a bed of rusty nails. Beside him, Agent Keung was quite still, eyes closed, her lips just barely seeming to move. Whether she was praying or simply reciting the inventory of equipment she was going to need when they landed was up for debate.

But they _were_ landing. That was the order Harlan had just given the pilot.

The two agents accompanying Wolff were also aware. Unlike their American colleagues, they were active, eyes out the window and hands on their weapons, readying themselves. She understood that Sterling typically handled Harlan's security – like Dalton typically handled hers – and these men, much like Joshua Carter back in LA, were not about to let anything happen to their boss on their watch.

Which was good. One less thing to worry about. A single Turk in the treeline with a rifle could completely ruin what was turning into a potentially salvageable situation.

As long as they managed to capture Aydin alive.

She glanced back across the bench, and found that Wolff was studying her, just as intently as she'd been studying him. Matty adjusted the mic on her helmet closer to her mouth.

"What's the plan once we land?" Now that Jack had killed Aydin's hacker, it was going to be a little more difficult to make contact with the colonel. They might actually have to literally throw him a radio.

Harlan's eyes flicked to the left as he thought. "Attempt negotiation. If he's unwilling, we'll gas them."

The problem with a shelter having only one exit was that it only had one exit. At this point, having incurred heavy losses, she was inclined to think Aydin would be angered beyond negotiating – or at least, negotiating in good faith. All they'd be doing by extending that offer was giving him more time.

But if he wasn't given an out, once he was confronted with knockout gas . . . he was just as likely to kill himself, not only to spite them, but to become even more of a martyr than he already was. Discontent people were just as likely to rally around a dead symbol as a live leader.

The end game was to overthrow Erdogan. That was his want. As long as she could provide him a clear path to it, he'd at least listen.

The helo approached the besieged convoy rapidly, and Matty turned her head by degrees, keeping the pain out of her expression with practiced ease. They were in the homestretch. As long as they got a location on those passengers – alive or dead – she could still make a case for all of it.

But getting a bird's eye view of the destruction – three vehicles on fire, two hit with rockets, bodies lying on the Autobahn – it was getting more difficult by the second.

Comparably, it was not the worst mess well-meaning Phoenix agents had created. By a wide margin. Relatively mild, even, considering both Jack Dalton and Angus MacGyver had their hands in it. Multiple countries' intelligence agencies and several militaries were involved, as well as more than a hundred completely innocent hostages, and even that didn't knock this into the top ten.

But Phoenix _orchestrating_ the break-out that led directly to this . . . getting Aydin now might be getting into the homestretch, but there were some very tough days ahead. No matter how much she hurt, no matter how tired she was, this was the part she'd warned Bozer about. The part where she couldn't afford any mistakes.

So Matty said nothing as the helo touched down, and the doors on either side of the cabin were thrown open. Her agents took the right side, Harlan's the left, and she waited like a good little director until both teams declared it clear before she unbuckled her harness and gritted her teeth, slithering out of the helo onto the pavement.

The vest was hell on the bandages on her back, just like Patience had warned her it would be. But anything more padded, more bulky would have shown, and the images they were capturing from this op would be circulated to multiple intelligence agencies – including her own. It had to look flawless.

And frankly, she wasn't the headline here. That was reserved for Harlan. He'd be making the arrest. The Dutch had lost Aydin, and the Dutch were going to get him back. She was just the supporting cast, to throw the colonel off his stride and to begin the interrogation the second they had Batuhan Aydin in custody.

Wolff and his two men had moved towards the HX2, that was still smoldering from the rocket strike, but it didn't look like they needed the cover. The firefight was basically over. Most of Aydin's visible men were down. One was moving, albeit feebly, behind one of the convoy cars, and two German soldiers were closing in to secure him. There were another nine, sprawled around the convoy, all clearly dead.

And nearly the same number of Germans.

Sterling was creeping out of the treeline, and she listened to him rattling off instructions to Archer. They were moving into position to launch the gas. In front of her, Agent Folami had his rifle up and was scanning the treeline on the opposite side, and Patience had their backs. Matty glanced back down at her tablet, studying the infrared map critically.

"Riley, do you see any more surprises?"

There was hardly a pause. "Uh, no, Matty," she responded, her tone subdued. "The four that crashed the party earlier snuck in when Iris was fighting me for control of the satellite, but – that's not a problem anymore." Matty heard a few clicks. "They were in another car, tailing the convoy about a hundred yards behind. They must have seen what we were doing, and took the last exit when the Germans stopped traffic. There are no other cars on the frontage roads on either side."

"I need you to be absolutely positive, Riley." She'd apologize for pinning the analyst down later, but they _could not_ afford another rocket strike, not with Wolff on the ground.

"I'm sure." It was a little more firm, but not up to her usual. "I'm still not reading anyone inside the semi, but everyone in the treeline is ours."

"And the Germans are detourin' all traffic almost a mile from your position," Bozer jumped in. "They mighta had other cars on the road, but they're not close enough to help."

If there was one trailing car, there could have been others. Maybe even the colonel himself.

Still. Riley had said Mac told her thirty men. They'd rounded up almost a dozen before the convoy, there were at least another dozen here, plus the four that Jack and Tunne had dealt with –

Even if they didn't have them all, they had enough of them to seriously disrupt any additional operations.

One of the Germans got on the bullhorn again, demanding surrender. Archer had moved out to the east side, fanning out behind the smoking lump that had once been a jeep, and the two tail cars of the convoy. They were within line of sight of the back of the semi, but they didn't take any fire.

And Aydin had to know what they were there to do.

Wolff surprised her by stepping out around the damaged HX2 and taking the bullhorn away. When he spoke, it was in English.

"Colonel Aydin, we have nine of your men in custody. We are willing to exchange them for hostages. Send a man out to negotiate."

In front of her, Leo starting back up. "Director, you should-"

"I'm fine right here," she cut him off. They were still close enough to the helo that she could take shelter there if absolutely necessary. But it wouldn't be. Archer would drop anyone that came off that trailer shooting. They didn't have a chance.

The silence that followed stretched out long enough that she could actually hear the groaning of Aydin's wounded man as the two German soldiers restrained him, could hear the fires burning, metal ticking as it expanded in the heat. Harlan gave the men hiding in that pile of lumber a good thirty seconds, and then he picked up the bullhorn again.

And she finally saw it.

Sterling called it on the radio, _motion. Hold your fire_. From her relatively low position, the first thing Matty saw was a pair of boots hit the ground, underneath the tail end of the trailer. The boots started moving, and a man in desert camo came out from around the back of the truck, in plain view, with his hands behind his head.

Behind him, another pair of boots hit the ground. Then another.

Four men in total. They lined up near the trailer, then got to their knees obediently when ordered, and Archer broke formation and approached.

"Castle, Archer. Semi's empty. Repeat, the compartment is confirmed empty."

None of those four men were Batuhan Aydin.

Matty stalked past Leo, intent on the cab – had they already accidentally shot him? – and Folami put out a hand. "Webber-"

She didn't even look at him.

By the time she'd caught up to Wolff at the smoking military truck, soldiers had already taken the four men into custody and breached the cab. They all knew who they were looking for, and before it ever hit the airwaves, she watched the German lieutenant make eye contact with his own superior officer, and shake his head.

Aydin wasn't on the truck.

 _Dammit!_

"Riley, Bozer, Jill, I need everyone analyzing the traffic that was around that convoy before we split it off. There was another trailing car. _Find it_. Now!"

Beside her, Wolff was scowling. "He's had over twenty minutes to ditch that vehicle. _Verdorie!_ "

Matty turned on her heels and gestured to the pilot in the helo to keep the bird idling. Aydin was a big guy, even by German and Austrian standards. He wouldn't find it as easy to blend into the crowds as his operators did. And the border was full of cameras, as was the Autobahn.

He had to be close.

Unless she was wrong? If the entire convoy was nothing more than a diversion, that meant he could be anywhere – and it also meant he was perfectly willing to sacrifice the men. Which would mean he either had a lot more than they previously thought, or he'd already met up with his reinforcements, but still –

Matty turned back to the semi, studying it. And she wasn't at all surprised to see Wolff more than halfway to it, flanked by his two agents. Clearly thinking along the same lines.

Why would he throw away that many men and that much firepower? Further, if it was a diversion, why risk his second in command and his hacker? Kadir Hakan was one of Aydin's original team of handpicked _Bordo Bereliler_. Special forces didn't grow on trees. Hakan had been the driving force behind getting Aydin out. There was no way the colonel would throw his best officer away on something as simple as a diversion.

Something wasn't adding up.

"Leo. Go with him. Make sure there's not another hidden compartment in that jigsaw puzzle."

Folami gave her a sharp nod, and started off for the semi at a ground-eating jog. Matty turned to Agent Keung. "Go make sure Dalton and Tunne are being taken care of. Then help out as needed. We need as many of Aydin's men to survive this as possible." Without Aydin in hand, they had to find those hostages before the colonel could move them.

The four that had surrendered were being led off the pavement – so at the very least, those four could be interrogated - and Keung headed for the treeline and Dalton's last known position. Matty glanced down at her tablet again, watching as three heat signatures approached the rear of the semi, and suddenly vanished.

Given the size of them in comparison to the black box that was the load of lumber, there was plenty of room in that truck. More than enough for –

A faint orange began to glow on the infrared image, from the very back of the cab of the tractor.

Matty glanced up, eyes on the blood-spattered windshield, and it was only because of her unique perspective that she saw them.

A pair of boots, just visible under the tractor. Between the tractor and the trailer.

That was the only thing she registered before a gunshot rang out, and Folami, who was nearly even with the front of the trailer, went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

Matty dropped the tablet and pulled her gun in the same motion, crouching to try to get a clean shot under the truck. Anyone remotely nearby immediately sprinted for cover. The person underneath the truck darted out at the same moment, and Matty tagged him. He stumbled and went down even as two more men burst out of cover. One of the shapes was tall and lean, almost the same silhouette as MacGyver. The other was enormous, and bodily picked up the fallen man and had him tucked practically under one arm.

Aydin.

Matty hesitated, adjusting her aim to wound, not kill, and chased the three men behind cover of one of the forward convoy cars.

Her radio popped, and suddenly she was looking at a bright blue sky.

Everything was quiet.

Matty lay perfectly still, staring at a white, fluffy cloud, and idly wondered why she felt so numb. Not until black smoke wisped into the perfect view did her brain start to question what was happening.

As soon as it did, the pieces started slotting into place.

Her lungs tickled, and Matty gave a weak cough. The sensation was strangely muted. A high-pitched hum gradually swelled out of the silence, and she raised a hand to her head, or tried. It was like her arm was asleep.

Matty picked up her head, as well as she could, and watched cinders floating down like black snow all around her. The semi was still there, the bed of the trailer and about a third of the tractor, but the lumber itself was gone, spread out over the road and the shoulder, even into the treeline on both sides.

 _Explosion_ , her stunned brain finally supplied. The lumber load had been rigged to blow.

Matty swallowed, trying to relieve the pressure in her ears. There were some very faint pops, she knew they were gunshots but she couldn't hear them properly, and then a shadow swept into her field of vision, and someone grabbed the front of her vest and snatched her up. It felt like she was attached to a freight train; whoever had her was hauling ass.

The bouncing was disorienting, but it helped. The pain grounded her, and there was plenty of it. Her back was by far the worst, bad enough that when she was finally set on her feet, the muzzle of the gun digging into her temple barely hurt at all.

She was being propped up about fifteen yards away from the helicopter. Matty used the visual reference of the rotors turning to pick the sound of the helo out of the buzz, and Harlan's pilot put up her hands and gingerly exited the bird. The pressure of the gun vanished and Matty heard another pop, somewhat louder than before.

The pilot fell.

Matty was picked up again, this time by the back of her vest. She felt herself cry out, loudly enough to choke herself, and noise returned even as her vision swam. She was thrown against something hard, and Matty opened her eyes to see the footwell of the helo's copilot position.

The only gun she'd had was her Beretta Nano, and she was quite sure it was no longer in her hand. The helicopter's collective was taking up most of the footwell space, but there was a clipboard between the seats, and Matty groped for it. She got hold of the pen before someone grabbed her – again by the back of her vest – and yanked her backwards up into the seat.

This time she heard herself yelp, and she didn't even need to see him to know the person in the cockpit with her was none other than the colonel himself.

He surprised her by gently tossing one of the headsets into her lap. He even gave her time to struggle into it, as he quickly warmed the helo up from idle to take-off speed. He was never so occupied that he didn't have one eye on her, and Matty knew she had no chance of getting out of that helo before he'd either grab her or shoot her. Out the cockpit windshield, Matty could see only a few people moving. The trailer of the semi was still there, smoking but basically intact, telling her the explosion had intentionally been focused up and out. It had turned that load of lumber into literal tons of lethal shrapnel.

That explosion was meant to take out soft targets. And it had done a spectacular job.

Her eyes fell on Agent Keung, still alive and huddled against the tire of one of the now fully destroyed convoy cars, pinned down by the two men who had escaped from under the trailer with Aydin. They were doing a bang-up job of covering their colonel's escape. On the other side, the four Turks who had 'surrendered' were somehow free, and engaging what was left of Archer and the Germans. No one was going to get close enough to the helo to take it down gently before Aydin got it off the ground.

And once he was safely away, he'd have no more use for her.

Matty rolled her eyes towards him and glared, holding the pen unobtrusively by her right thigh as she slumped motionless in the chair. He graced her with a quick look, then reached up above him and toggled a few switches. Aydin looked as comfortable in the cockpit as Harlan had –

Harlan Wolff had gone inside the semi just before it blew. Even if he'd spotted the explosives, there was no way the deputy director could have gotten clear of the blast.

Wolff and his two agents were dead.

Matty briefly closed her eyes. "You're racking up some pretty powerful enemies. Is there anyone in the EU you _haven't_ pissed off yet?" 

She heard a deep grunt of acknowledgement. "I can only hope they are not so hard to kill as you and your agents. Tell me, is this why you call yourselves the Phoenix Foundation?"

Matty opened her eyes again and gave him a dark look, keeping her movements down to an absolute minimum. He already knew she was injured, with any luck she could make him think she was completely incapacitated. "You have no idea, colonel. Surrender now, and I can promise you we can keep Erdogan's kill squads from executing the rest of your men."

His lips turned up, even as the helo shuddered, then lifted smoothly off the ground. "You need not worry about my men, director. You should be more concerned with your own."

Riley. Mac. And now Jack. John, Leo, Patience. Not to mention everyone who'd been anywhere near that explosion.

And everyone who'd been in that villa.

Instead of bristling, she scoffed. "Are you really so arrogant? Sergeant Hakan and Hatice Iris are dead. You're in some of the most closely monitored airspace in Europe, and half a dozen global intelligence organizations are tracking this helo. It's _over_ , Aydin. Don't make this worse. For _their_ sakes."

He shot her a cold look, which told her he already knew that he'd lost his second in command and his tech. He also gained some altitude while he waited for radar to kick in. "No worse than the losses you have suffered. Tell me, what have you gained, involving yourself in matters that do not concern you!"

Matty let her eyes flash. "You involved me, colonel, when you attacked my agents! They were _arresting_ Ambassador Chevalier! He was coming back to the United States to be prosecuted! If you had left them to it, the international community might have been on your side, instead of Erdogan's!"

His cold glare intensified. "Why are you here, director? Do you even know?" He didn't give her a chance to answer. "You are here because it is crucial for your men, for your equals, and for your superiors to see you. The people must _see_ their leaders leading. What would I be leading if I allowed my enemy's allies to merely slap the wrists of those who deserved nothing less than what I gave them!"

"Look out the window," she snapped. "Those men lying dead down there? _That's_ where you've led them!"

He didn't look out the window – she hadn't really expected him to – and instead he reached across the cockpit with a snarl. His hand closed around the top of her vest; his fist was too big to fit around her throat but it cut off her air just the same. Matty choked, bringing up her left hand to try to pry his fingers loose, and he dragged her roughly over the console.

"You . . . _murdered_ . . . good men," he bit out savagely. "And you are going to die for it."

She tried to smile through the grimace she knew was on her face. "Back . . . atcha," she rasped, and gripped the pen tightly in her right hand before jamming it as hard as she could into the soft flesh under Aydin's chin.

He released her, and Matty sucked in a welcome breath of air before the world tilted. She reached out for anything she could get hold of, which ended up being the console in the center of the cockpit, as the helicopter listed sharply. She raised her face to see the colonel gripping the wound tightly with his right hand. Even at her angle, the fury in his eyes was unmistakable. They stared at one another a long second, and then he banked the helicopter hard right, and her precarious hold on the center console slipped.

Matty slid across the cockpit to slam against the copilot's door. She hadn't bothered to close it, and apparently neither had the colonel, because it gave easily. The headset was ripped off, taking some of her hair with it, and then Matty was falling through empty space.

-M-

It was bad.

He knew it before he and John ever cleared the treeline. Knew it in the voices he heard on the radio, and more from the voices he could hear in the background of the radio. He tuned it out best he could, focusing on his breathing, and his coms.

"Somebody gimme . . . a goddamn sitrep!"

Tunne steered them around some thick brush, and then they could finally see the road, and the convoy.

What was left of it.

The truck was done. Just wheels and a flatbed. The lumber had blown, and chunks of it were stickin' outta trees and bodies like Buffy the Vampire Slayer had torn through high on bath salts.

His com popped. "John, that you and Jack coming up from the west?" Saito's voice was urgent.

"Affirm," John rasped. "I can't see shit, but is that truck-"

"Yeah," Jack confirmed breathlessly, and both men flinched as a couple shots were fired.

No matter how bad it looked, _somebody_ out there was still alive and shooting.

Jack hissed when Tunne dragged him behind some scraggly trees, and he painfully balanced his right arm on his thigh as he crouched. He couldn't shoot, and John couldn't see. Tunne was right. They were worse than useless out here.

Saito made no attempt to soften the news. "The truck blew after Wolff and two of his guys boarded it. Someone opened fire right before, we lost infrared after the blast. I think Folami and Keung are down. _Tell me_ you got eyes on Matty."

Besides the truck, Jack clocked the four convoy cars, all destroyed beyond any hope of driving. No one seemed to be moving around them. To the south, behind the now fully fucked HX2, he could see Wolff and Matty's helo, winding back up out of idle.

And clearly, if what Saito had told him was correct, Harlan Wolff wasn't the person in it.

"Got a couple in . . . the bird. Matty, you with us?"

"Her com's offline," Riley answered him, her voice tight. "Either it got knocked out in the blast, or – "

Jack's stomach plummeted, and he half stood to get a better view. Gunshots nearby – on his and Tunne's side of the treeline – made him flinch back. Couldn't tell where they'd come from. There was debris between the helo and the mess of destroyed vehicles, could be bodies - but then a little pile of it moved, and Jack saw a puff of dust as someone fired at it.

"You see her?" John was squinting not at the road, but at the 9 mil in his hand, checking the chamber. Even if he couldn't see well enough to bulls-eye anyone at distance, he could still do some damage if Jack could get him close enough.

The profile of the moving shape was small, way too small to be a member of Archer. "Maybe. Got motion . . . south side –"

Their coms crackled. "-that'd be me," an equally breathless voice admitted. The transmission quality wasn't great, but -

It wasn't Matty.

"Pait?" At least the size was right. "You hit?"

It took her a second to respond, and Jack watched her closely as she dared to stick her head out of cover. Two more shots were fired, right at her, from the other side of the smoldering semi.

". . . not bad, but I'm pinned down. Leo's hit, he's –" She broke off and ducked under another round. "- west side of the trailer, near the front tires."

"Stay where you are," Jack ordered, picking out the tall shadow, lying prone and unmoving, _way_ too close to the site of the blast. "You got Matty?"

The slight woman shifted a little, looking back towards the helo. "She was behind me before the truck blew, I –" She paused. "The pilot. That's the pilot down! Whoever's in that helo's not a friendly!"

Jack focused back on it as the helicopter eased off its skids and into the air. At this distance, he couldn't see the pilot, let alone if there was a passenger. If he had his rifle -

"Riley, tell me you can . . . hack that bird-"

Whoever was on the other side the semi took another pot shot at Pait, and Jack swore. "Goddamn these guys are . . . pissing me off!" He straightened as best he could, intent on finding a gun so he could fire back, and Tunne put out his arm, careful not to actually touch Jack at all.

"Stand down-"

" _Riley_!" Jack snapped instead, then he bypassed Tunne and limped over to a very dead German, about fifteen feet away, and hefted the guy's rifle with his left hand. "John, go get Pait. I'll . . . lay down cover fire, get you . . . to that silver Beamer."

"Jack, I'm _trying_!" Riley growled in his ear. "That's a military aircraft! Even if I can get access, the pilot can override!"

John came up behind Jack's left shoulder and unceremoniously yanked the rifle out of his grasp. Jack half-turned after it, but a lightning bolt of pain shot across his upper chest, and Jack swore again, dropping to one knee at the suddenness of it.

"Dammit, Tunne-"

The Green Beret didn't reply or apologize, he simply racked the weapon, confirming it was in firing condition before he offered it back. "Dalton, you actually practiced leftie anytime this century?"

Jack tried to breathe through the pain, then he snatched the firearm back. "If I shoot you . . . it'll be on purpose." Since he was already in a decent position, Jack propped the rifle barrel into the V of a handy stout sapling. "I count two. If you can . . . flush 'em my way."

"God, this is a bad idea," Tunne muttered, and then he carefully moved to the treeline. Jack watched him count it down, and his eyes strayed up to the helo, now gaining altitude.

"Riles, honey, if you're gonna . . . do something, you gotta do it now!"

The radio, which had been nothing more than Castle trying to raise fallen men, crackled with a new voice. "This is Phalanx, you have friendlies under the trailer, repeat, friendlies under the trailer! How copy, over!"

Phalanx was Harlan Wolff's callsign.

Jack blinked, then shifted the rifle up towards the semi, and used the optics. Sure enough, he could see a shape squirming around under the smoldering trailer, near the front tires.

He was gonna have to let go of the rifle to respond on radio, and Tunne knew it. He paused his countdown and grabbed his.

"Phalanx, Archer, good copy. Friendlies under the trailer. Be advised you got two tangos just east of your position, over."

Jack watched another shape seem to squirm out from somewhere else under the trailer, and suddenly an idea occurred to him. "Pait, can you . . . wave at those fuckers? Don't get shot, just . . . get their attention?"

He didn't get out from behind the shitty scope, but he could hear the glare she'd sent in his direction loud and clear in her voice. ". . . sure . . ."

Less than a beat later, a burst of automatic fire ripped out from beneath the trailer, well before Patience ever had a chance to move. It stopped as suddenly as it started, and then the only sound was the helo, gaining additional altitude and taking a heading due east.

Jack craned his neck as far as his broken collarbone would let him and watched it, even as his radio crackled.

"Archer, Phalanx. Two tangos down, over."

Which meant Keung was safe. Jack sent the man a silent thank you.

His radio crackled again, and the voice on it was barely above a whisper. "Phalanx, this is Sterling. Stay under cover. Moving in on two, west side."

West side was Jack and Tunne's side, and Jack turned his head carefully to his left. The underbrush was too thick to see anything. In front of him, John had done the same, hand on his radio.

"Sterling, Tunne. Two on the west side are friendlies, over."

Last thing they needed was to start taking each other out with friendly fire.

"We see you, Tunne," an unfamiliar voice replied, also in a whisper. "You got two bogies fifteen meters due south. Unless you two changed your shirts and got a tan."

If that was true, Patience had her back to 'em. "John, go help," Jack ordered, over coms. "Then secure that semi." If Wolff was still alive, at least they had an asset on the ground who could mobilize some goddamn air support.

If Webber was on that bird –

The whine of an engine overhead got Jack's attention, and he looked up in time to see the helo suddenly list starboard, drifting about twenty yards and losing altitude before stabilizing. Before Jack could do more than climb to his feet, the helicopter banked hard, circling until it was almost directly overhead, and a few seconds later, the cockpit door burst open and half the copilot was ejected.

Only when the shape went spread-eagle did he realize it was an entire person. A very small one.

His breath caught in his throat, and Jack watched Matilda Webber fall almost thirty feet before she crashed into the underbrush on the shoulder of the road.

" _Matty_!"

He grabbed the rifle and covered the distance between them like a man half his age. He couldn't catch his breath, but that didn't matter. The enemy soldiers still in play didn't matter. All that mattered was the too-small hole in the thick hedge, and the fact that he couldn't force his way through it fast enough.

She'd torn through the leafy greenery and lay cradled in the woody parts, and the exposed, waxy white wood matched her complexion almost perfectly. But her arms and legs seemed to be in the right places. Her neck didn't look broken. He didn't even see that much blood. Jack didn't bother with trying to find a pulse, he simply dropped the rifle and grabbed her by the vest with his left hand, gently sliding her along the broken, woody branches until she slithered softly onto the grass.

She gave a halfhearted cough as she encountered the ground, then sucked in a quick gasp, and her eyes flew open, wide and full of panic.

Jack took a knee beside her, and put a steadying hand on her shoulder. He wasn't sure which of them was shaking harder.

"Hey, boss lady. Just take a breath."

She didn't need to be told. Her mouth was wide open, and she gulped air before coughing again. It didn't sound overly difficult, and there was no blood on her lips. The panic in her eyes, however, wasn't going anywhere.

Had the wind knocked out of her, at minimum. And he had no real idea how injured she'd been _before_ she fell a couple stories.

Jack gave her a watery smile. "You're okay, Matty. Just . . . lie still." Knowing that everything he was saying was going over coms, he cleared his throat. "Pait, I need ya here –"

Matty reached out, almost convulsively, and grabbed his left wrist with more strength than he would have thought possible. She didn't say anything, couldn't around the panting, and Jack froze stock still.

Then, very deliberately, he took his left hand off her shoulder, tugged his wrist free of her grasp, and then wrapped his blood-crusted fingers around her frantically searching ones.

"It's just us," he said quietly, and gave her a gentle squeeze. Her wide brown eyes never left his, even as involuntary tears gathered in them. "I gotcha. Just take . . . a second, Matty. It's okay. I gotcha."

Her tiny, tough fingers latched onto him for dear life, and he gave her a reassuring grin, then swallowed any unsteadiness out of his voice, and chanced a restricted glance over his shoulder.

"It's okay, Patience is . . . on her way. Agent Keung, 'member her? She's . . . gonna patch you up. You're good, Matty. He's gone."

More than gone. The helo was well past the convoy, headed east. He didn't need to ask Riley if she was tracking it. It didn't matter, not right now.

Near the convoy, Patience was just stepping back from Tunne, who was holding a weakly struggling Turk in a chokehold. Even as Jack watched, Keung capped and discarded a one-dose auto injection pen, then started limping towards him and Matty at a pretty decent clip.

John let the barely-conscious Turk drop, his attention on the semi, and made no immediate move to grab a pair of handcuffs.

Chemical restraints were just as good.

Jack turned back with a strangled laugh to find Matty still watching him. She blinked, maybe the first time she'd dared to do it since she came around, and Jack gave her an encouraging nod.

"We captured a few . . . alive for ya. Convoy's all wrapped up, boss . . . fight's over."

In his ear, his com popped. "Jack . . . is she-"

"She's just fine," he replied smoothly, not knowing whether he was lying or not, and Matty swallowed hard, trying her damnedest to catch her breath. "I'm gonna kill her . . . when we get back but . . .she's gonna be okay."

He didn't even get a flicker of a smile, and the pit in his stomach ate deeper.

Patience slid in beside him, at Matty's head, and put three fingers on her throat. Matty flinched hard, her eyes rolling to see who had touched her, and Jack cursed his useless right arm and squeezed Webber's hand tighter with his left.

"Pait, just give her . . . a second. Tell 'er what . . . you're gonna do."

The agent didn't respond, eyes on her watch. The glass over the face of it was broken, but the second hand was still ticking away, and Jack noticed blood on Keung's thigh.

"You good?"

She still didn't look at him. "It's Leo's," she replied distractedly. "Director – Matty – can you look at me?"

Webber obediently rolled her eyes upward, but didn't move her head, and Patience glanced at Jack, then did a double-take.

"Scoot over, Dalton. Not too far."

Jack grimaced but did as he was asked, and Matty tightened her grip on his hand as he shifted down a little to make room for the medic. Patience didn't say anything about it, she just continued her examination.

"Matty, I'm going to feel the back of your neck. Tell me if there's any new pain."

Webber focused on the other agent, but she kept a firm hold of him, and Jack squeezed her back reassuringly. He couldn't turn his head to look behind him, so he settled for staring at the weedy bushes that had somehow broken her fall without breaking her neck. "How we lookin', Tunne?"

There was a short pause. "You're not fuckin' funny, Dalton," he rasped. "Boss really okay?"

Given that Patience was working methodically down their director but hadn't started shouting for supplies or assistance, he was going to go with 'maybe.' "Yeah. How's Wolff?"

"Bleedin' out the ears, but walking and talking. Don't ask me how. One of his guys is messed up pretty good." He heard John grunt. "Site's secure. Sterling's called in reinforcements and medevac."

Jack cleared his throat. "Ri, you got the colonel?"

"Yeah, us and the entire German air force," Bozer answered for her, his voice tight with worry. "Aydin's not goin' anywhere."

"How's . . . Folami?"

Matty's voice was weak, but music to his ears, and Jack focused back on her as Patience carefully began loosening the velcro on Matty's vest. She was calm as she replied to her patient, giving nothing away.

"Almost as lucky as you. He was shot in the hip and got knocked out by the blast, but he was close enough to it that most of the shrapnel went right over him. German paramedics have him."

Matty seemed to think about that a moment, then she blinked again, and Jack was pleased to see that she was getting a handle on her breathing. Her hand released his, finally relaxing, but he didn't change his grip. "Jack . . . make sure-"

"Jack's going to the hospital with you, John, and Folami," Patience informed her, in the same dry tone. "Phoenix will liaise with Dutch and German intelligence to secure our wounded during treatment."

Matty actually withdrew her right hand from Jack's, only to raise it towards Patience. "I need to-"

Keung automatically folded Matty's hand down to her side so she could pull off the front half of Matty's vest. "We had a deal," she cut their boss off. "You passed out, and now you're going to the nearest ER."

Webber winced, and then Patience carefully pulled the front of the vest over her head, and Jack saw the blood smeared on the inside of it.

Not much, and mostly on the right side.

Jack caught Keung's eye. "Sounds like a . . . good idea to me, boss," he offered at the icy look the tac medic gave him, and her expression shifted to something a little more approving.

"Jack . . . " It was over coms, and it was Riley. "Something's up –"

His eyes lit on the rifle he'd dropped, even as Patience carefully slipped a hand under Matty. There was no way they could move her, not yet. "Talk to me-"

"The colonel's helicopter's losing altitude. _Fast_."

Jack rotated on his knee until he could turn enough to look towards the east. The trees on the other side of the road hid any sign of the helo, and the sound got to them before he saw the smoke.

. . . what the _hell_? "Did someone just shoot him down?"

"No, German air support's still scrambling." This time the voice was Saito. "He just dropped."

Kamikaze, then? He knew he was never going to escape, and rather than be caught . . . ?

Or he was trying to fake his own death.

Jack opened his mouth before a harsh whisper beat him to it. "Aydin?"

He turned back to see Matty, her entire face screwed up in a grimace, rolled partially onto her left side. Patience was supporting her with both hands, her expression unreadable.

"Yeah." Matty didn't have coms in, she wasn't hearing the whole conversation. And she looked like she could use the distraction. "Looks like the helo just went down. Riles, you got eyes on? Make sure that son of a bitch-"

Even with her eyes still clenched shut, Matty shook her head. "He went down with it. I . . . ahh . . . couldn't let him . . . he would have killed the hostages . . . to spite us."

Keung slipped a square of gauze underneath the director, and then very gently rolled her onto her back. "Paramedics will be here any second, Matty. Just try to stay still."

Based on Matty's expression, and the fact that she'd stopped breathing, Jack had a pretty good idea what was on the gauze. Same shit that was on his arm, and he knew damn well how much it stung.

He also had a pretty good idea what she meant when she said she 'couldn't let him'.

"You catch that, Riley?"

" . . .yeah," she said, quietly. "Jack . . ."

"It's okay," he told her, and he honestly wasn't sure why he said it. Wasn't sure whether he was talking about the colonel, or Matty, or the fight being over. Some of those Turks were still alive, and one of them would talk. They'd find the hostages.

The fight was over.

"It's okay," he repeated, and beside him, Matty took a shallow, shaky breath.

He didn't realize Keung had moved on to him until he felt her small hands, from behind, loosening his vest. Even adjusting it slightly hurt like the dickens, and Jack growled at her, then just gave up.

The fight was over.

She was careful as she manipulated the vest off, and Matty managed to get her eyes back open in time to see Jack wincing as it was lifted over his head, and the Kevlar scraped against his collarbone. Patience let it slide off to thump onto the ground, and Jack was almost surprised that he couldn't see any grass poking up through the obvious holes in the front of the material.

"Sorry, Jack-"

"It's okay." A glance at his chest told him he wasn't bleeding, at least not out the front, and then he turned to his left, just a little, as the sound of feet trampling through grass registered.

"I need a neck brace and back board," Keung instructed the approaching paramedics – for Matty – and Jack eased himself out of his one-kneed crouch, falling onto his right hip. Patience steadied him, and Jack groaned as all the adrenaline in his bloodstream suddenly evaporated.

"It's okay," he told her, gripping his right arm tightly to prevent it from moving any further, and he sensed more than saw the tac medic give him a once-over before she scurried towards the approaching ambulance – probably to get the supplies she'd asked for.

Jack closed his eyes for a moment, fighting the lightheadedness that always hit after the adrenaline was gone, and his body had time to take stock of the beating it had taken.

". . . Jack . . ."

His eyes snapped open again, finding Matty watching him. She hadn't moved, but she was still conscious, and her voice sounded a little stronger than it had before. He tried to flash her a grin. "It's okay."

Her eyes flicked between his, a little more sluggishly than usual, but with all of the same intensity. ". . . thank you."

He didn't have the energy to nod. "S'not like . . . I'd make that mistake . . . twice."

Chechnya. He'd let her down, that night, and he'd sworn it would never happen again.

She held his gaze, looking right through him, and for reasons he couldn't quite explain, Jack felt his eyes prick. So he closed them, and swallowed hard to try to chase away the sudden lump in his throat.

" . . . it's okay," Matty told him.

He shook his head, only once; it hurt too much to do it again.

It wasn't. It wasn't okay. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew. No matter how many times he said it out loud, he knew it wasn't true.

"He's going to be-"

"What if he's not?" Jack couldn't get any real volume behind it. "What if he's not, Matty? I . . . I told him it'd . . never happen again. I promised him . . . I _promised_ him –"

That it would never happen again. That he'd never let him down again. That Aydin and his men would never get ahold of him again.

That he wouldn't let them.

But he had. And they did. And now the fighting was over, and the colonel was dead, and he had to walk into that hospital room and -

"Jack . . ."

"We got us a deal," Jack told her, fighting to keep his voice steady. "He's gotta . . hang in there 'til I . . . get back. But what if . . . I get there an' . . ."

It'd be just like Mac to take it literally. Hang in there 'til he got back.

 _Just_ until he got back.

Footsteps approached, and Jack opened his eyes again, in time to see Matty's completely unguarded expression of sympathy, which hurt almost as much as his arm.

She knew it too.

It wasn't okay.

-M-

Bozer stared at the monitor, at the puff of black smoke, trying to wrap his mind around what he'd just seen.

"Did someone just shoot him down?" Jack's harsh voice was a mix of incredulous and skeptical.

There were no other aircraft around, which Bozer was about to volunteer when Saito jumped in first. "No, German air support's still scrambling. He just dropped."

No trail of any kind of surface to air missile, no nothing. Aydin was running without a transponder, at a low altitude to try to duck under radar, so there wasn't even anything to lock onto. He'd just –

Crashed.

Batuhan Aydin had just crashed in the woods on the German – Austrian border. And it didn't look like the kinda crash you walked away from.

In the background of someone's coms, Bozer heard a breathy voice. "Aydin?"

God, Matty sounded terrible.

He toggled back to the satellite view, the same one that Mila, Jill, and Riley were watching, a bird's-eye view of the highway. Riley had zoomed in on Matty as soon as they'd realized where Jack was sprinting, but they still couldn't see much of her. Just the crushed bushes she'd landed on. Patience had rolled her onto her left side, to try to get a look at her back, and Jack's head and shoulders were blocking everything else.

Bozer wasn't even sure Jack knew the back of his head was bleeding. He hadn't reached up for it once.

"Yeah," Jack said, clearly to Matty. "Looks like the helo just went down." He was using his 'calm Mac down' voice, Bozer had never actually heard him use it with anyone else except that one time with Riley. As if on cue, he continued, "Riles, you got eyes on? Make sure that son of a bitch-"

Then he stopped, and Bozer had to really concentrate to hear. "- went down with it. I . . . _ahh_ . . . couldn't let him . . . he would have killed the hostages . . . to spite us."

It was Matty again.

She must've done something before she'd fallen out of the helicopter, messed with it somehow –

But then, if Aydin, Iris, and Hakan were all dead . . . then how the hell were they going to track down the hostages?

There was a quiet murmuring of voices, the only reason it caught Bozer's attention was because it was in the room with him. He glanced up to see a woman in a bright yellow blouse and a black pencil skirt having her ID checked by his in-room security – for the eighth time – and Bozer leaned up a little, stretching his back as he heard Agent Keung in his ear, telling Matty that the paramedics would be there any second.

As he set the laptop on the coffee table in front of him, Bozer toggled over to the view of the operating theater, fully expecting to see the same thing he'd seen for the last seven hours – the tops of surgeon's heads, and a bunch of hospital blue drapes.

Instead, he saw an empty metal table, and a few people towards the edges of the room, cleaning up.

Bozer immediately tapped his com to silence it, and quickly stood up as the woman was cleared to enter the room, and headed straight for him.

There was no one else, after all, but him and Harlan's security detail. He met her halfway, his heart in his throat.

"Can I see him?"

The woman – Anita something – blinked at him, a little nonplussed. "Ah – Mr. Bozer, I wanted to let you know that we've received the documents stating you have durable power of attorney, with full agency to make decisions regarding Mr. Morrow's medical care on his behalf."

Duh. Phoenix had sent them hours ago. "Yes – okay – so can I see him?"

Anita gave him a politely confused smile. "I'm sorry, Mr. Morrow is still in surgery-"

Behind them, there was more low murmuring, and Bozer looked past the hospital's legal assistant to see a man in a pressed grey suit, watching with curiosity as his ID was run under an ultraviolet scanner by the Dutch agents at the door. Bozer hadn't seen much of the surgeons, not even their hair color because of the surgical caps, but something about the lack of strain around his eyes and weariness of his movements told Bozer that he was definitely _not_ one of the guys that had spent the last eight hours working on Mac.

He skirted around Anita politely but firmly, and addressed the party at the door. "Are you one of – of Luka's doctors?" He barely caught himself in time.

As far as Academic Medical was concerned, their patient was Luka Morrow, a Reuters journalist. His face had been circulated with the rest of Aydin's men across the Netherlands by the media, and in the rush to get him treated there hadn't been time – or reason – to backstop a new identity. Harlan's men knew Luka was really an American agent.

The doctor accepted his ID back, clipping it to his jacket. When he spoke, his voice was heavily accented, like Wolff's. "My name is Doctor Levi Van Dijk. I'm the administrator of this hospital. And you are Wilt Bozer?"

Hospital administrator. The head honcho. Bozer impatiently shook the offered hand. "I am. Can I see Luka now?"

"Would you please come with me?" he replied smoothly, as if it was always what he'd planned to say next, no matter what question he'd been asked. Bozer's stomach plummeted, and after hesitating a second, he started off in the direction Van Dijk indicated without another word.

Silently, the two Dutch agents followed.

Their party didn't have far to go, and even with the signage in Dutch, Bozer knew he was being taken to the administrative section of the hospital – not the ICU. Cold dread washed over him as he saw that the only open door in the lavish hallway led to a well-appointed office, in which two other people were standing.

Waiting.

Bozer entered the office reluctantly, listening to the hospital administrator asking the other agents to remain outside, while a warm-looking woman in purple came immediately up to him. Her smile was soft, and her eyes compassionate.

He knew immediately that he didn't want to hear anything she had to say.

"My name is Sasha Banks, I'm a patient advocate," she told him in almost perfectly unaccented English.

"Bozer," he replied, letting her shake his hand. She sandwiched it between hers and gave him a little squeeze, and Wilt gently extricated it, letting his eyes move on to the other person in the room. This woman was clearly a doctor, and her scrubs looked relatively fresh, but her hair, which was pulled back, had a sheen of oily sweat to it, and when she reached out and shook Bozer's hand, hers was warm, almost hot.

"Dr. Ines Meijer, chief of neurology," she said simply.

Simple was all he was ready to deal with. "How is he?" he asked, his voice sounding terribly small in the well-upholstered space.

Dr. Meijer took a measured breath, and gestured for him to sit.

"I'll stand," he said, more sharply than he meant to.

"Mr. Bozer, please," an authoritative voice started from behind him, "there are several things we need to discuss –"

Wilt rounded on the administrator. "How many times are you gonna make me ask? Is he okay? Is he –"

"No."

No.

 _Of course he's not okay, idiot_ , Bozer chided himself. When the chief of medicine and the hospital administrator come to talk to you, and grab a counselor, that means –

Wilt turned woodenly, and asked the hardest question of his life.

". . . did he . . . die?"

Dr. Meijer's grass green eyes glanced over Bozer's shoulder – clearly at the administrator – before they settled back on him.

"Mr. Morrow is currently being transferred from the surgical suite to the STICU," she told him.

Transferred. ICU.

Those words should have put him over the moon, but nothing in Dr. Meijer's voice indicated that it was positive news, and Bozer swallowed hard.

" . . . and . . .?"

"His condition deteriorated rapidly during surgery, and continues to deteriorate," she told him bluntly. "I am happy to sit with you and give you all the details of the procedure, but at a high level . . . the knife did significant damage to his right lung, punctured his thymus, and put pressure on his heart and on his spinal cord. He presented with extremely low blood pressure and extremely rapid heartbeat. Once our trauma surgeons removed the knife, his heart rate dropped into the thirties and never recovered."

Bozer just stared at her. "So . . . his heart stopped?"

She seemed to consider her next words carefully. "It would have. We've temporarily fitted him with an external pacemaker." She indicated the seat, again, and Bozer sank down into it without even looking. Dr. Meijer took the seat beside him, sideways so that she was still facing him.

"His heart and lungs are no longer functioning on their own. While the total volume of blood he lost was not excessive, the pressure on his heart and his compromised lung caused a – a shortage of oxygen to the rest of his body. We've corrected that, and placed him in a condition known as therapeutic hypothermia to try to limit any additional damage."

It sounded like she was saying -

"What does that actually mean?"

The doctor was watching him intently. "It means he's likely suffered widespread, catastrophic brain damage."

Bozer simply shook his head.

No. That wasn't possible.

"-all we can see right now is generalized swelling. It takes some time for this type of damage to become visible on scans. We'll monitor him closely, and relieve the pressure surgically if necessary. If he survives the next forty-eight hours, we'll –"

"If? What do you mean, _if_?!" This couldn't be happening. There was just no way, no way that Mac had -

The doctor shifted a little, and Bozer realized that he was somehow on his feet. Someone put a hand on his shoulder, and he angrily shrugged it off. "You're already writin' him off? You're givin' up on him?!"

This couldn't be happening. He _could not_ let this happen.

"You need to understand, Mr. Bozer, he's almost completely neurologically unresponsive," she told him, in a tone that indicated she was trying to be gentle. She wasn't very good at it. "As of half an hour ago, only his most basic reflexes are still intact, and even then his responses are weak. His chances are surviving the night – they aren't very good."

Wilt stared at her, then out the window, where the sun was still shining away.

It wasn't even sunset yet.

"But _no one's_ giving up on him," she continued, and finally, there was some inflection in her voice. Some steel. "We've assigned a dedicated STICU care team to Mr. Morrow, including the heads of our trauma and hematology departments, as well as several neurologists from my division. He'll continue to be kept on life support and aggressively treated until we can confirm our initial diagnosis with imaging. Only when the swelling comes down can we get an idea of the full picture."

Only when the swelling comes down.

"So – you don't know, then? There's a chance that he'll recover?"

The doctor finally took her feet, physically leveling with him – then shook her head. "Even in the ideal prognosis, with optimal response to therapy, he would be looking at regaining some . . . twenty-five percent of the ground he's lost. At best, he would be in a permanent vegetative state." She took a deep breath. "We'll keep him on life support as long as we need to, but if he has family in the United States . . . they need to get here as soon as they can."

-M-

Remember how I said a few chapters back, that there were going to be some hard chapters, and asked you to hang in there, and it'd be worth it?

It's going to get worse before it gets better.

In summary – A lot of people are dead. A lot of people are injured. A lot of stuff got blown up. Aydin and Matty had a David and Goliath moment, one that neither of them walked away from, though Matty's in better shape than Aydin. Jack and Matty's falling out was alluded to, and will be developed more in future chapters. It's not all bad news - Harlan Wolff should be dead, but miraculously survived. The entire battle (which my beta says is confusing, and I agree with her) will be summarized and hopefully clarified in the next chapter.

And Bozer got some heartbreaking news.


	16. Chapter 16

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning** : Mild tearjerk warning.

-M-

"You have any escapees during transit?"

Saito glanced down the hallway, phone to his ear. Generally he preferred having both hands free, but contrary to popular films, talking on coms when there was no obvious coms tended to get people's attention, and he had no desire to look like a lunatic talking to himself.

Also, in this case, he wanted to avoid coms, because the talented Ms. Davis was undoubtedly listening to them.

And clearly Josh Carter was thinking along the same lines. Not for the first time since getting reassigned from Russia, Saito begrudgingly wished that he had one of those douchey looking Bluetooth earpieces.

But no one in the hallway gave him a second look. Which was exactly the way he wanted it.

"Remarkably, somehow we actually got everybody here."

The room to his right contained their most valuable asset, and Saito shot a casual glance through the observation window to see that the occupant was exactly where he'd left her. Protocol prevented anyone other than Phoenix agents to be present when manager levels and up were under the influence of anesthesia – for obvious reasons – so her room contained the only other Phoenix agent that wasn't under doctor's care.

Wilt Bozer sat in the chair beside her bed, his face a mask of exhaustion, staring at his phone. Near as Saito could tell, kid hadn't moved a muscle in the last hour. He was utterly worthless from a security perspective; poor dude was in shock. But he'd respond if Matty woke up, and giving him a job to do, however badly, kept him out of trouble.

"How is she?"

Saito's eyes slid to the dome camera over the nurse's station. "Came through with flying colors. Should wake up in an hour or so. Whatever they did, it didn't take long."

No, the problem had been transport. The doctors in Germany hadn't been keen on putting her back in the air before she'd come around from the procedure – something about a concussion. But they simply didn't have enough people on the ground to secure two hospitals, and Germany was way the hell too close to any of Aydin's guys who'd slipped their grasp.

Official story was that they'd captured Aydin. And if you counted the burnt corpse in a bag in the freezer downstairs, it was technically true.

Saito was letting Harlan's people handle security on the morgue. Several of his own agents were down there, just like several more were up here, further down the hallway. And Wolff had been keen to get them back to home territory.

"She's gonna be pissed when she wakes up," Saito added quietly. "You might wanna dodge her calls for the first couple hours."

"Yeah, that'll make her much happier," Carter agreed sarcastically. "I like my job, thanks."

"Hey, man, don't say I didn't warn ya." The fact that their director was in a child's neck brace because the adult version was too large was unlikely to amuse her. Nor was her current status of 'relieved of her duties'. It wasn't the first time in memory that she'd been out of the loop due to physical injury, but she wasn't going to be very happy about the timing.

"How's the new boss taking it?"

"Eh," Carter hedged, and over the phone, Saito heard some shuffling, then the sound of a door closing. "Disappointed he's not got the job permanently. Nice guy." He heard the hiss of a leather chair expelling air. "Backup's about six hours out."

"Copy." Saito moved on, strolling past Matty's window to the next. The bed was hardly long enough for its patient, in this case, and even the white sheets couldn't make Leo Folami look pale. It was like a pitch black shadow was lying in a bed. The former Recces operative had been awake earlier, but finally seemed to have succumbed to the bags of goodies hanging off his IV pole. His room also had another occupant, and Keung was wide awake, holding a tablet and smiling softly. Saito didn't linger.

She'd gotten tossed around a little bit, and was being held for observation, but avoided most of the shrapnel and managed to escape with nothing worse than a sprained knee. Still, she was going to have a _lot_ of explaining to do when she got home.

Saito passed the nurse's station, confirming the correct two people were there, and glanced into the next room. This door was slightly open, and someone in blue scrubs was writing on a whiteboard.

Orderly. Guy's name was Garza or something. His patient seemed to be asleep, but he wouldn't be for long. Dalton hadn't had surgery, he'd just been heavily sedated for x-rays and getting fitted with a sling and a compression shirt, and he'd had the flight from Germany to Amsterdam to sleep it off. As soon as he was even remotely cogent, he was going to insist on going up to the fourth floor, and Saito continued in that general direction.

"How's Dalton?"

Saito just shook his head, well aware Josh could see it on the hallway cameras. "Beat to hell. All we told him is that Mac's in the ICU, but he knows." He'd known before they even told him. Probably knew it before Wilt did.

That's how partners worked.

Which had been another reason for the sedation. Jack hadn't exactly agreed to it, and he was probably going to have some strong words for Keung after he finally came around and figured it out. Still, four broken ribs and a broken collarbone weren't pleasant, not counting all the soft tissue damage, and there was no reason to be conscious when someone was cramming all that into the world's tightest muscle shirt.

Carter gusted a sigh. "No change then?"

"Not that I've heard."

The next room also had the door slightly ajar, and Saito poked his head in. He barely muffled his snort.

"Hang on."

Saito took the phone off his ear and input his password, then swiped it over to the camera. Once the evidence was captured, he grinned at the image, then texted it to Carter.

It didn't take long for Josh to get it, and Saito continued grinning as he heard his colleague snicker. "You're an asshole, Saito."

The agent backed out of the room, careful not to wake the slumbering superhero, and gently closed the door. "Do me a favor, have that shit printed out on a big-ass poster for when we get back."

It was a green gel cooling mask, that one of the nurses had probably just placed on the sleeping agent, and having seen John's burns up close, Saito knew it had to be helping. His face was a mess, covered in some kinda moisturizing slime, but the doctors were hopeful that Tunne would have minimal scarring, and no permanent nerve damage. The same went for his corneas.

Now, permanent reputation damage, after everyone saw him sleeping away wearing a bright green eye-mask ala Robin – or no, the Green Lantern –

Or the Green Hornet. Shit. That would make him Kato. And it was too late to recall the image.

He should have thought that one through.

"Will do, buddy. Sounds like we'll need the laughs."

Didn't look like there was going to be much else to smile about.

Saito felt his grin slip away, and he said his goodbyes quickly and disconnected the call. The rest of the rooms on this side housed Wolff's agents, with just as many down as Phoenix. Only one of Harlan's guys was bad enough to join Mac upstairs, and even allowing for the enormous rooms, they'd still managed to keep everyone on one side of the building.

Wolff had a couple snipers across the street, keeping watch, and Saito knew Phoenix had eyes in the sky. They were as safe as they could be, until Matty was cleared for international travel.

He didn't think they'd leave until they knew, one way or another, if Mac was going to be coming with them.

Saito gave the Dutch agent at the stairs a nod, then passed through the wide double doors, and took the stairs up, two at a time. The STICU floor was already locked down, only authorized caregivers had access, and he flashed his badge at the reader, waiting for the magnetic door to click. Mila and Riley had already vetted everyone up there, and a good half of the hospital staff, and found nothing out of the ordinary.

Still, Saito made sure he recognized every last person he saw. There were only five people up there. Three nurses, one Dutch Deputy Director, and one Dutch agent on the stairwell, giving him the same once-over.

Harlan glanced over, but otherwise didn't acknowledge him, and that was fine with Saito. He'd been standing right over Riley's shoulder watching the sat feeds during the fight, and Harlan's escape had looked like next level black magic from their point of view. But once the Germans completed their initial investigation, and sent over the photos, it became pretty clear what had happened.

There'd been two compartments built into the lumber load, complete with a trap door through the truck bed. Aydin had used it to slip under the truck after his guys had 'surrendered' to create a distraction. When Harlan didn't buy it and boarded the semi, he or one of his guys had found the second compartment and trap door, and pulled it, figuring they were going to find Aydin. The guy Harlan was watching through the glass had shoved him and the other agent out right as the explosives blew.

Wolff and his other agent had concussions and blown out eardrums. The guy on the other side of that glass wasn't so lucky. His odds were about as good as Mac's to make it through the night. And Harlan himself was technically a patient; his balance was fucked up from the air pressure change caused by the explosion right over his head, and he'd been scowling pretty much since the plane had touched down in Amsterdam and Saito had come to escort them to the hospital.

Probably pissed off that he wasn't allowed to interrogate the survivors of the convoy. They were no closer to finding those missing hostages.

Though no one was standing outside Mac's room, there was someone moving around inside it, and Saito paused at the window.

It was the chief of the neurology division, he recognized her by the violently orange sneakers she was wearing. She was blocking his view of Mac's head, doing something with a syringe and a towel, and Saito waited. Whatever the result, she carefully wiped something off the side of his face, or maybe his ear, and then stepped away.

There wasn't a mark on him – at least not any new ones. He looked exactly like he had half an hour ago, and Saito continued on his way. She, like the hospital administration, had been brought into the loop – to a point. They knew Luka Morrow was a very important witness, that he was not guilty of terrorism, and that the Dutch police and an American agency were extremely interested in his recovery.

And she very clearly didn't like it.

She'd made that very plain. The patient was her focus, and the fact that they were even breathing the hallway air was impacting the STICU team's ability to provide the best quality care. There were no visiting hours – not even for Bozer. They were controlling everything in that room, down not only to the decibel of sound and lumens of light, the temperature and exact humidity of the air going through the ventilator, but even Mac's core body temperature, via a self-contained, recirculating saline catheter they'd run into an artery in his thigh.

Eighty-nine point five seven. His temp was being managed to a hundredth of a degree. Well beyond hypothermia limits. Even in a coma, Mac should have been visibly shivering.

He wasn't.

Saito didn't stick around to ask questions – she wasn't going to answer them. Instead, he proceeded to the STICU visitor's lounge, the very existence of which proved that at least _sometimes_ visitors were permitted, and poked his head in.

It had been almost entirely taken over by Harlan's team, and converted into a remote ops center. Mila Visser was looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the large TV they'd hurriedly mounted to one of the walls, and in the far corner, where he'd left her, Riley was sitting Indian-style in a comfy looking recliner. There were two presumably empty styrofoam coffee cups by the foot of the chair, right next to her borrowed tennis shoes. Her position was somewhat isolated from the rest of the furniture and the people, in a corner so that she could easily see anyone approaching in her peripheral vision, and she was one hundred percent focused on her laptop.

And she had no damn idea that she'd intentionally made those tactical decisions, or why.

He'd given Bozer a job to prevent him from wandering around the hallway up here like a ghost. But Davis was diving head-first into the work as a coping mechanism, which was exactly what she didn't need to be doing right now.

She needed to be down in Dalton's room, feeling safe enough to sleep. And frankly, Jack could probably use the company, the reassurance that she was okay.

Watching Jack fight on infrared had been bad enough. Hearing the gunshots, and watching his outline fall – any progress she'd made in standing down had been undone in those few instants. She was up here because she 'didn't want to bother Jack' and Saito was reasonably sure she knew that was an excuse.

She didn't want to face him, and explain why she'd left Mac behind. Or show Jack that she needed a little help right now.

She thought she was directly responsible for Mac being in that bed down the hall, in a coma so deep even he was never gonna crawl out of it.

And if she'd been in a better headspace, she might have realized that Dalton was probably feeling exactly the same way.

So he didn't say any of it – she wouldn't hear him even if he tried – and instead Saito entered the room, nodded to Mila and Kurt, and headed to her chair. As expected, by the time she'd actually finished glancing up, she'd already catalogued him and dismissed him, because he never actually got her eyes.

"You're off coms, Saito. You avoiding me?"

"Must've forgotten to turn it back on," he replied easily, reaching up and doing so. "Working logistics with Carter. We've got backup incoming, six hours til they touch down."

She just nodded, typing away. "I've got the Doctors Talbot a feed into the hospital system, to give them a head start while our acting director plays nice with the hospital administration."

Good. The more data Phoenix had on their people, the better equipped they'd be to get them home. "You clean everything up?"

He got a distracted nod. "Yeah, Bozer filled me in." Her fingers stilled for a moment. "I'm . . . kind of regretting giving him that video feed, though. I don't think I've seen him blink in like ten minutes."

Saito felt his eyebrows bunch, and Riley sighed, and angled her laptop monitor so he could see. She'd given Bozer the cameras in Mac's room, so he could keep an eye on his roommate from Matty's, and she'd also given herself access to the front facing camera. Bozer looked exactly like he had before.

Shell-shocked.

"He could use some sleep. You both could," Saito suggested mildly.

As expected, she shut him down. "As soon as we find those hostages, I promise I'll sleep like th-" She caught herself, then quietly cleared her throat, her eyes narrowing on the laptop like something amazing had just been displayed. "Aydin's guys are going to hang onto them if they think they can exchange them for the colonel, and they'll probably also try to move them to a new location. Jill's working on likely spots, and I'm on transpo. Mila's given us access to everything they have, and the Germans are just starting to come around."

"Good work," he told her, and he meant it.

She frowned at the praise, but Saito let it go. Pushing her was not what she needed right now. Instead, he toed the styrofoam. As expected, empty.

"Want me to find you something a little stronger?"

She glanced up at him, finally looking at him, and he saw the strain in her eyes. "Uh . . . yeah," she managed, dropping her gaze again, and swallowing hard. "Yeah, if you could, that'd be great."

"Agent Davis, this is Amsterdam," he told her seriously. "You can find anybody's poison here, if you know where to look."

Not even a ghost of a smile. "I think I'll stick with coffee."

"Actually decent coffee, coming up."

-M-

Nothing in the footage was a surprise.

Most of it Matty was familiar with. She'd been watching it on the helo. The converging of the German, Dutch, and American agents on the convoy. The appearance of the party crashers, the rockets and the following dust-up, her confidence that Dalton and Tunne could handle it shattered in one rocket explosion and three gunshots. All her attention had been focused on that fight, so instead she turned her attention to what had been happening on the east side of the convoy.

Everyone had done what they were supposed to do. There were no heroics, no unnecessary risks. There was also no indication that Aydin was under the truck. He must have still been inside it, tucked away in his hidden compartment, simply listening to the battle.

Knowing his men were out there dying for him. Matty idly wondered if they'd given him the option to object, or they'd simply executed the plan at the direction of Kadir Hakan.

She toggled the footage to the complete satellite view, watching as the helo came in. The dots that represented their party, all six of them disembarking the helicopter. The four Turks surrendering. Harlan and his two agents entering the semi.

Leo getting shot.

There wasn't even a flicker of motion in the satellite footage. If she hadn't been watching the IR feed, she never would have realized Aydin and two of his guys were under there. She watched them scuttle to the east, watched her little dot take down one of the men, watched the colonel's much larger dot scoop him up as he sprinted to cover.

Matty paused the footage as the semi exploded, then let it play in slow motion. The colonel and his two men didn't even flinch. They'd known it was coming. That meant it probably hadn't been set off by Harlan – it had been a remote detonation. Likely triggered by the colonel himself. He'd fully intended to kill Wolff, and anyone out on that battlefield still alive.

Even his own wounded men.

She made a mental note to follow up, make sure the Germans found that remote. Then she set the footage back into real-time.

Her little dot had been knocked clean off its feet by the blast. Her vest probably had little wooden shards in it; she hadn't noticed. Aydin didn't take long to determine that his own means of escape was the helo, which had been partially protected by the tractor of the semi from the blast, and was also the furthest vehicle out. The man she'd tagged had still been moving, and she watched them lay down cover fire as the colonel ran for the helo. He didn't make a straight line for her, it was more a diversion of convenience, and then his big dot had scooped up her little dot, and he confronted the pilot.

According to the current casualty manifest, the pilot had been killed. She was the only one out there not wearing a bulletproof vest.

There was still no sign of Wolff or his guys, just a burning semi and a huge black cloud of smoke.

The helo created a vortex that swirled the smoke, making much of the footage worthless, but as soon as it gained altitude, it became readily visible again. She watched their struggle, watched the helicopter drift before Aydin had gotten control of it, watched it spin when he'd dumped her, practically on top of Jack. Her little dot was just a little dot, falling, and then the helo went east.

It kept a steady heading longer than she expected. The colonel was a large man, with a generous volume of blood. If the pen hadn't punctured his trachea, the coroner would probably attribute his death to the crash. That report wasn't in yet – at least as far as Riley's hacks had determined – and Matty focused back on the convoy.

She watched Jack appear out of the trees and head for her, and she remembered most of that, so she focused on the convoy again. Someone had shot Aydin's men, but the four that had surrendered earlier had done well in creating a distraction. Agent Keung's little dot had gone straight for Leo, it looked like she was aware that Harlan was under the semi but someone waved her off. One of the Turks that she had assumed was dead went for Keung, and her little dot backhanded him right into Tunne.

It was a mistake her own enemies had made, over and over again. Assuming a short woman was an easy target.

Dots she presumed were part of Archer moved out of the treeline towards the convoy, including medics, and then shapes finally started wiggling out from under the truck. Matty zoomed in, watching Wolff help one of his agents out from under the smoking flatbed, and then crawl back under, pulling one half of a stretcher with him, and help the paramedic get the other one.

 _The people must see their leaders leading._

Aydin wasn't wrong.

The fury in his eyes, it hadn't been about losing the battle, or even losing his life. It had been about losing his men. And Matty could relate.

Matty let the tablet rest against her stomach, blinking her grainy eyes. Concussions _sucked_. She didn't even want to think about turning her head – as if the neck brace would let her - and was going to personally strangle the next nurse who tried to lay her bed flat. It was very early there, about four am local time, and she wasn't looking forward to the rising sun. Some asshole had decided they should be on the wing with the patient windows facing east.

Probably Wolff, because there was a nice tall building across the street, and she was sure if she looked, she'd find a sniper nest or two. His agents were on the same hall as hers, and she could be sure he wasn't going to take any chances with them.

At least she knew Wolff was on the same page with her when it came to that.

The rest of it . . . particularly if they weren't able to rescue those hostages . . . that was a little more nebulous. And her head hurt way too much to linger on it for long.

Ignoring Harlan Wolff and the Dutch, she knew she had her own superiors to worry about. Oversight – and more importantly, the man that Oversight reported to – were going to have a few choice words for her regarding this operation. She'd already racked up two black marks, and one of them was inarguably linked to one Angus MacGyver.

And like last time, he wasn't going to be able to improvise his way out of it.

Matty closed her eyes, then took a couple deep breaths. Long before she was ready to pick up her phone, it started to vibrate, and Matty rolled her eyes, still closed, then pried them open again, and raised the smartphone to her face.

It was the Phoenix. Her own office line.

She sent it to voicemail, and there was a quiet knock on the door.

Webber thought about calling out to whoever it was – the nurses didn't knock, so it had to be one of her agents – but the shadow that had been passed out in the chair to her right suddenly startled awake, the whites of his eyes the only thing she could easily pick out in the dimly lit room, and she regarded him gravely.

" . . . well?" she finally prompted, when he just stared at her, and Wilt Bozer almost jumped out of the chair.

Her phone vibrated again. Same caller ID.

Matty resisted the urge to roll her eyes again – even closed, it had hurt – and she once more sent the call to voicemail. Jill wouldn't be calling her from her own desk, and no matter how much the current 'acting director' wanted some clarity on the Turkey situation, she knew better than to offer him anything that wasn't already available to him.

Everything that happened, now that she was obviously and openly injured, had to be absolutely by the book.

So it was no surprise to her that when Bozer opened the door, a semi-formally robed Harlan Wolff was standing there.

"Good morning," he greeted Bozer softly, in accented English. "Is Director Webber in any mood to receive guests?"

"I'm jetlagged, Harlan. What's your excuse?"

Bozer interpreted that as permission to let Wolff enter, because he shuffled a few steps back and did so. The deputy director looked fairly stable on his feet, all things considered, and in his hands he held a tall, steaming cup of liquid, and a tablet.

"Your State Department appears to be unaware of time zones," he answered her, once he located a chair – not the recliner Bozer had been using – and sat. He gave no obvious indication of any kind of balance or nausea issues, but he was moving very, very deliberately as he set the cup – tea, it smelled like – on the table next to her bed. "They've requested my organization immediately release Aydin's rebels into the custody of Turkish agents on the ground."

There was a lot to parse through, there. 'Aydin's rebels' was clearly a label that had come from the State Department. Which was probably just parroting it from their Turkish allies. 'Agents on the ground' meant that Turkey had staffed their local embassy to take custody of the just over one dozen Turks that Harlan was currently holding. Nine from the cruise ship escape, and another five from the convoy.

The request coming through the State Department would have attempted to completely bypass Harlan Wolff, seeing as he was temporarily relieved of his agency's command by his injuries. And it was the US asking, not Turkey directly.

That was _probably_ the State Department trying to downplay US involvement, but it could also an attempt by Erdogan to appear as though he had been in control of the 'capture' of Aydin. Either way, she was quite sure Wolff – or whoever his agency's talking head currently was - had told them to go screw themselves. It was customary for a forty-eight hour grace period to go by, allowing for open investigations to be closed before finalizing suspect hand-off. Wolff wouldn't permit anything less.

Not with over a hundred lives on the line.

"But it seems neither one of us is on the clock, as you say in America. How are you feeling this morning?"

Matty discovered Bozer was still hovering at the door, so she threw him a bone. "Why don't you go check on our boy?" she suggested gently, and she didn't have to offer twice. After the door closed, she groped blindly around for the remote to push herself up a little more into a sitting position.

"Do you need assistance, director?"

She appreciated that Harlan asked, rather than simply assuming. "No, thank you. And I feel like I bailed out of a helicopter without a parachute. You?"

He made a quiet hum of agreement. "Like I dove to twenty-five meters without equalizing pressure."

Matty added 'scuba diving' to her potential list of hobbies that Harlan enjoyed.

"If I might ask, do they think you'll be up and around in a few days' time?"

Matty had no illusions that Harlan hadn't somehow gotten hold of her medical record. Which was probably the only reason he would believe her when she said 'yes.'

"Well, there's the concussion and whiplash, some lacerations from landing in the rose bushes, and enough bruising to make me almost entirely black and blue, but no broken bones," she assured him. "If the nurses here are anything like the ones in the US, they'll have me wandering the halls in a few hours."

The Dutch deputy director inclined his head, and while she had the remote in her hand, she brightened the headboard light a little.

"How is Agent Jannsen this morning?"

If he was surprised she knew the man's name, he didn't show it. "I am afraid he is not much better than your Agent MacGyver." Wolff paused thoughtfully. "That team seems very close."

Probably referring to Bozer all but sprinting out of the room to check on Mac. She was frankly surprised that Boze had managed to fall asleep at all. "More than you know. Bozer and MacGyver are childhood friends. And Dalton served as Mac's overwatch in Afghanistan during his time in the Army."

Harlan nodded once, then seemed to reconsider the wisdom of it. "And sharing a cell while in enemy hands can forge a very strong bond."

Something about his tone seemed to be inviting inquiry. "Yes, it can," she agreed carefully. "Especially when interrogation is involved."

Wolff studied her a moment. "Mila tells me Agent Davis is still working the op."

Matty's head hurt too much to play games. "If you're concerned about any intelligence Agent Davis may have been compelled to -"

He actually raised a hand to stop her. "No, no, nothing like that." The speed at which he interrupted her reassured her somewhat. "I only meant that she has just herself been rescued from a distressing situation, and it's my understanding that she removed herself from her doctor's care in Düsseldorf."

Matty had seen Riley's test results. She had a few bumps and bruises, and more than a few square meals to catch up on, but otherwise she was fine – at least physically. There was no concussion, no indication of anything more serious -

Of course, the person to get her those results was Jill. Who probably got them using Riley's entry point into the hospital network. And while Davis had held it together just fine during the convoy attack, the truth was Matty hadn't actually seen her agent since Riley was recovered from the lock, let alone debriefed her.

"I'll talk to her this morning, see if I can convince her to get some rest," Matty promised, and Harlan gave her a significant look, then let it go.

Ever cognizant that the walls had ears, he was telling her to go fishing.

"Well, she is very driven to find the hostages. I must admit, I share her concerns."

"As do I, Harlan." Which led them to the elephant in the room. "I regret that we were unable to capture Aydin alive."

"Not for lack of trying," Wolff allowed. "You are very lucky to be alive, Matilda."

Whether he had somehow found out about the attack on her residence, or was acknowledging that she had acted in self defense, she appreciated his understanding. It wasn't necessary, but it was nice.

"We both are," she told him. Then she indicated the tablet in her lap. "I know we've both been benched, but I've been looking through what our analysts have collected on the Turks in your custody. It looks like one of the men held a logistics position on his base's armory."

"And you think he may have been involved in the logistics around the hostages," Wolff finished. "I too wondered that. My interrogators have been working on him all night. But I wanted your opinion, Mila may have stumbled upon something else."

By the time the sun was up, they had both worked their way through several cups of tea – and Matty had forgotten how good a proper cuppa was with milk and sugar – and compiled fairly complete profiles on each of the men. Once Harlan's nurse had figured out where he was, he was firmly scolded but allowed to stay, so long as he promised to remain seated. Their analysts also seemed pleased they were collocated – less need to repeat themselves.

Matty got her morning pain meds – of which she palmed half – and asked for an update on her agents. The nurse promised that she'd send the physician in as soon as he was through with rounds. At this point it was just after seven o'clock in the morning, and Matty was legitimately surprised when the hospital administrator knocked on the door.

"Deputy Director Wolff, Director Webber," he greeted them by title, letting himself into the room. "My name is Dr. Levi Van Dijk."

"We met yesterday," Matty reminded him, and the doctor flashed a practiced smile. Cognitive test one, passed.

"Yes we did. Deputy Director, I apologize but I must ask you to please return to your room. There are a few tests we need to run, and after your breakfast we'll assess whether you can be discharged. There's a nurse outside to assist you."

While Wolff scowled at him – and made no move to get up – Dr. Van Dijk turned to her. "Director, I'll be back soon to give you a similar update, as well as pass along a request from our staff."

Probably to either call off Bozer's vigil – the camera feed showed he was parked stubbornly outside Mac's observation window – or to do something about Dalton, who she was quite sure was awake by now and possibly handcuffed to his bed.

The tac team Carter had sent from LA to secure the hospital could handle Jack. Right now she had other things to worry about.

It didn't take Van Dijk long to finish up with Wolf – she only managed to get through about three reports – and Matty wasn't sure whether she was relieved or concerned when he closed the door softly behind him.

"Director Webber-"

"Matty is fine." She was pretty sure she remembered telling him that yesterday, as well, but she also remembered feeling drugged and defensive, so there could have been an expletive or two embedded in the request. This time she made sure it was polite, but direct.

He responded well, and took the seat that Wolff had vacated. "Matty. I'm pleased to tell you that our vascular and orthopedic departments have confirmed your preliminary results. Without having your complete medical history, there was a concern that you suffered from osteogenesis imperfecta, but clearly that is not the case. You're going to be sore for a long time, possibly in the realm of months, but there should be no permanent skeletal damage."

Nothing she didn't already know. "That's good news."

"Yes it is," he agreed. "As for the lacerations and puncture wounds," and here he stopped, because he knew damn well that her record stated there had been none prior to her being admitted for emergency care in Germany before being transferred to Amsterdam, "there is some indication of infection. We're going to keep you on the antibiotics that were prescribed by your previous physician for two weeks. In addition, a surgeon will be administering a local anesthetic and installing drains for your deeper wounds later this morning."

Fabulous. "Understood. Anything else?"

His eyebrows jumped a little. "The concussion is relatively mild, considering the fall you suffered. You may experience spells of headache, dizziness, or nausea for the next several weeks, but they should fade in intensity fairly quickly. Your neck is another story. Because of your genetic condition, you lack two cervical vertebrae, and there's a possibility that you may experience some fusing in the neck. You'll need to undergo physical therapy to prevent it during the healing process, and that physical therapy will need to be administered by a specialist. Do you have such a specialist in Los Angeles?"

He meant someone who specialized in treating people with dwarfism, though he was doing an admirable job of not spelling that out. "I do."

"Excellent. When you're discharged, we'll send that information directly to your physician and specialist."

"And how are my agents?"

The administrator finally glanced down at the sheaves of paper in his hands. "Patience Keung will be discharged today with a brace for the sprained knee and a recommended course of physical therapy. Bottom line, she should retain full mobility of the joint. John Tunne is responding well to treatment, but we'd like to keep him another day, just to be sure a secondary infection doesn't set in. Burns can be tricky."

He flipped to the next sheet of paper. "Leo Folami will require an additional surgery to repair his hip. The surgeons were able to completely remove all the bone fragments and rebuild the joint during his first surgery, but they need to give that about a week to heal before they go back in and reattach the ligaments."

So he was stable, and could probably be transferred back to the States in between, so long as his hip was stabilized for air travel. "What about his blast injuries?"

"Like you, he suffered a concussion, though his is more severe than yours. He's had several periods of wakefulness and demonstrated short and long term memory recall, but he's having trouble keeping solids down. We're treating him with some anti-nausea drugs that should make him more comfortable."

He flipped the page over, then cleared his throat. "Jack Dalton is stable, but is refusing treatment. Which leads me to my first request."

"Let him see his - friend," Matty suggested dryly, catching herself at the last moment.

Because it wasn't Agent MacGyver up there in that room. It was Luka Morrow, and that meant she didn't have the same clout with him as she did with the rest of her agents.

That was going to get old, fast.

Van Dijk gave her a practiced smile. "I'm sorry, but visitor access to STICU patients is at the sole discretion of the patient's care team. At this point –"

"At this point he's braindead, or a hair's breadth from it, and wasn't expected to survive the night," she interrupted coldly. "I fail to see the harm to Luka, and it may give Agent Dalton some closure."

Levi drew himself up in the chair. "Luka Morrow's treatment includes therapeutic hypothermia. This puts him at an enormous risk of infection, because his body is being prevented from generating a fever. Coupled with the damage to his thymus, which produces a type of white blood cells, his immune system is badly compromised. It is the recommendation of his care team that no unnecessary personnel or items be permitted in his treatment space."

Matty also drew herself up. "Clearly, since his care team has access to him, there are safety procedures in place to limit the risk of infection. Provide that training and equipment to Agent Dalton and Wilt Bozer. If they fail to follow protocol, revoke their visiting privileges."

Levi gave her a long look. "If we were to make an exception – and I stress that _if_ – it would be for his power of attorney, and his family members only. There is no benefit to law enforcement attempting to question someone in Luka's condition -"

Matty made a face. "This isn't about _questioning_ him," she corrected him sharply. "This is about _Agent_ Bozer and _Agent_ Dalton having the opportunity to say goodbye!"

Van Dijk blinked at her, taken aback, and she gave him a full force glare, willing him to put two and two together. "In case it isn't readily apparent to you, doctor, we're a family. We're all the family Luka has. So get his care team on board, and make the damn exception."

-M-

Roughly thirty hours after he left his partner lying there on the deck of that ship, Jack finally made good on his promise.

He sat heavily on the examination stool – the only seat in the ultra-sterile room – and ignored his throbbing ribcage, using the stool to wheel himself closer to Mac's bed. It was hard to find a place to get in there, around all the machines, but he found a likely access point on the left side of the bed, where his sling wouldn't get in the way.

And he couldn't help the thought, that even in this big, cold, empty room, hooked up to all those bells and whistles –

Mac looked two hundred percent better than he had thirty hours ago.

His skin wasn't grey anymore. It wasn't his normal healthy glow, but it wasn't that far off, either. Only his head and the tops of his shoulders were visible, sticking out of what looked like a translucent, quilted blanket. Jack knew it wasn't keeping him warm, that Mac was actually cold, but his lips weren't blue. He wasn't shivering. There was a bruise on his face, and a little cut on his temple that was only visible because of the white butterfly bandage over it, but all in all –

All in all, he looked . . . okay.

The beeping of the heart monitor was perfectly steady. Slow, insanely slow, but steady. The ventilator was the same.

He remembered bits and pieces of what Bozer tried to tell him. That keeping him cold, keeping his heart rate down, that it was part of the treatment. Would stop any more damage.

But it wasn't going to heal him. And the damage was already done.

Jack sniffed, then reached up absently and pulled the mask a little further down his face. He was wearing some kinda disposable smock, just a front with sleeves, and his hands were stuffed into latex gloves. None of it did anything to keep the chill off.

It felt like a damn morgue.

Jack cleared his throat. ". . . hey, dude . . . I . . . I, uh, I did what you asked. We, uh, we rescued the crew. Got every single one of 'em out of there, man, thanks to you." In some ways the mask was nice, he knew no one watching could read his lips, see his face.

It was still damn hard to keep his voice steady.

"Wasn't sure anybody told ya," he added. "Boze just left. He, uh, he'll be back in a little while. We gotta take . . . take shifts." Lest they warm up the room too much.

He cleared his throat. In front of him, he watched Mac breathe in time with the machine. There was no sound of difficulty. Not like when the medic had been working on him. It was much easier now.

Shit. He had a lot to catch Mac up on.

"We got Riles, she's not exactly happy with you at the moment." Might as well warn him now. "That hacker – this chick was called Hatice, can you believe it?" He tried valiantly to make the creepy slurping sound Hannibal Lecter had made at Clarice Starling, but he wasn't sure how well he pulled it off. Stupid mask.

"Anyway, she sent out an INTERPOL alert on Riley, made her out to be a suicide bomber. She took a page outta your book, gothed herself up so the local LEOs wouldn't recognize her. She's real good with a pair of scissors, by the way. You should prolly apologize, when she comes in here."

What else. Jack blew out his cheeks. "After that, we tracked the colonel down thanks to, like, atomic wood. And what the hell kinda clue was that, anyway? Semi sinkin'? Brother, you definitely had us scratchin' our heads for a minute." Not that it really would have made a damn bit of difference, if they'd figured that out an hour earlier, things still woulda gone down the same.

"So I got good news, and bad news. Good news, Aydin, his hacker, and your shadow ain't gonna be botherin' any of us ever again. Bad news, all the passengers from that boat are still unaccounted for. Could really use your help trackin' 'em down," Jack added quietly, watching the monitors.

Nothing changed.

Jack shook his head, then winced, and put his left arm around his ribs. "I took a few to the vest, nothin' new there. Tunne tried to headbutt the back end of a rocket, that didn't turn out so well, but he'll be fine. Matty decided to take a header out of an airborne helo, that wasn't fun – oh, shit, you don't know. Myrrh was a misdirect. Matty's fine. Well, she ain't fine," he amended. "Boze says she's in a neck brace and kinda looks like one of them cayenne women we saw in Myanmar, you know, with the rings to stretch their necks into human giraffes?"

Mac gave no indication he knew what Jack was talking about, and Dalton sighed.

"Anyway. We're bruised and battered, dude, but we're good. Bad guys dealt with. Everybody's in one piece man. Everybody but you," he added, hating the way it went all unsteady there at the end.

His partner didn't give him any shit for it, though, and Jack rubbed his nose through the surgical mask.

"We had a deal, dude," he tried, then swallowed. "I go and finish up the grocery run, and you stick around and cool your heels 'til I get back. That was the deal."

Of course, Mac _was_ cooling his heels, and something that Jack decided to label a laugh bubbled out of his chest.

"So what the fuck you call this, huh?" he tried, knuckling something out of his eye. "Buddy, this ain't part of the deal. No way no how. I know it took me a while, but I'm here. I'm here."

Thirty hours and twenty minutes too late.

Jack bowed his head, staring at the clean white sling – brand new, just for this visit – until he could see the lines on it again, and it wasn't all blurred. It would kill Mac to hear him sniveling. He had to keep it together.

"I'm sorry I made yo-" He couldn't quite get it out, and Jack knew he was smiling under the mask, knew that Mac would hear it, even if he couldn't see it. There was no denying he was crying, now, but at the very least he had to keep it out of his fucking voice.

"I'm sorry I made you wait so long," he blurted. It came out mostly okay. "I'm sorry, man. I was just . . . s-scared . . . an' I know you are too, but d-don't be, okay? You just-"

He couldn't finish that sentence. Couldn't say it out loud. Couldn't talk at all. It was against the rules, but _fuck_ those rules, _fuck_ those doctors who let him stay in this dark, cold, huge-ass room all alone while he slipped away.

All alone. He'd been all alone.

Jack groped blindly under the gel blanket, finally flipping the edge of it up, until he found Mac's forearm, and followed it down to a wrist, to a hand. He grabbed that hand as tight as he could, so that Mac knew, he _knew_ that he wasn't alone.

And even through the latex gloves, his partner's hand felt wrong. Cool. Soft.

Even when you were deeply unconscious, a breath away from death, there was always _something_ , a tiny little thread of tension that kept muscles attached to bones, bones attached to sinews. The barest flicker of electricity that held you together, bonded all those separate parts into one living thing.

But Jack was holding a glove of skin, stuffed with liquids and bones and flesh.

He was holding a lukewarm corpse.

Jack swallowed, hard, and gave it another squeeze. Then he carefully set Mac's hand back on the bed, and gently folded the blanket back down around him.

It took him a few minutes to find his voice. When he finally did, it came out husky.

"You just rest, okay bud? There's . . . there's somethin' I gotta . . . won't be gone long. Gotta make room for Boze . . . he's pacin' a hole in the floor . . ."

He laid his hand on top of the blanket, where he knew Mac's was, and then he pushed himself to his feet. His chest was killing him, protesting every moment, but there was a cold place right in the middle of it that didn't feel much of anything at all. He focused on that, put one foot in front of the other. Made it to the door, where he pulled off the mask, letting it fall on top of the lidded trashcan.

He'd have to mess with the sling to get the smock off, and it didn't matter anyway. He clutched the door lever, steadied himself, then pulled it open and walked into the hall. There were people out there. He shouldered past them without a word.

Across the hallway, there was a closed door, not like a patient room. He turned the knob and entered, finding it empty of people, and let the door close behind him.

Down at the end of the hall, near the visitor's lounge turned temporary Ops, a nondescript Asian guy glanced over. After a second, he ambled in the general direction of that room, and when he got there, he leaned idly against the wall beside the door, pulled out his phone, and started playing Bejeweled.

-M-

I'm trying to get these next few chapters out to you guys quickly – I know how annoying cliffhangers can be!

If you remember from the original **Turkey Day** , I had to create 'Oversight' because it hadn't yet been revealed in the show. So my version of Oversight are a pair of essentially unnamed people who run the organization. Since we now know this to be false, I had been hoping to get to this point before the new season started up. Oh well.

In order not to stray too far from the revealed canon truth, but to maintain continuity between the last story and this one, I'm going to keep my two unnamed people as 'Oversight', but they have a boss. And we all know who that boss is, even if most of the characters don't. Okay? Awesome.

So, to sum things up – they still don't know where the hostages are, and are pretending the colonel's still alive in the hopes of locating and rescuing those poor folks while they're still breathing. Matty is well aware that she's not in a position to fully protect her agents, but she's doing the best she can. And Mac is no better – in fact, he's worse. Jack and Bozer are not handling it well.


	17. Chapter 17

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning** : Mild tearjerk warning. (At least I think it's mild?)

Also, a big thank you to Alyssa Blackbourn for the inclusion of her characters Grant Simmons and Ricardo 'Eric' Ramirez, who are being used with permission.

-M-

Riley roused herself when her phone vibrated, blinking a few times at the laptop still balanced on her folded legs.

Search was still running.

She took a deep breath, feeling like she hadn't in a while, and grabbed the device to keep it from sliding away as she straightened her knees and stretched her legs out in front of her. She'd fallen victim to another catnap.

No one seemed to have noticed. Mila Visser was actually curled up in one of the recliners, legitimizing her nap with a pillow, blanket, and eye mask. And a few of the analysts in the room were new, murmuring quietly in Dutch. She was really going to have to learn a little of the language, if they were going to make ops in Amsterdam an annual thing -

The phone vibrated again, somewhere near her right thigh, and Riley sleepily dug around for the offending device. It was wedged between the arm of the chair and the cushion, and she managed to catch a corner of the gel case with her fingernail and fish it out.

Two missed calls, about an hour apart. German country code. And about fifteen emails, no surprise there. Two to her Phoenix account, twelve to her personal -

And one to Annamarie Fischer.

Her drowsiness drained through the sudden pit in her stomach, and Riley stared at the title of the email.

 **Followup**

There was an attachment.

She flicked down the phone's main menu and glanced at the two missed calls. They were from the same number. The first had come in about the same time as the email.

Riley clicked the power button to kill the screen, then gave the room another casual glance. No one was looking her way. No one seemed to notice the room had gotten colder, either, and Riley wished she'd been smart, like Mila, and accepted one of the umpteen offered blankets.

She eased herself out of the chair, locking her laptop and leaving it behind. A few folks finally glanced her way as she crossed the room, but no one tried to stop her. There were new flags on the map of Europe displayed on the wall, but she ignored them, and managed a nod to the agent – Phoenix, this time, and one she actually knew – at the door before she headed out into the hallway, and hit the green Call Back button.

The restrooms were situated near the lounge, but she decided that was too risky, and diverted for the STICU exit, instead. The other end of the line started ringing, and by then the double doors had snapped shut behind her, and the magnetic lock had reengaged.

She was now in the elevator lobby for the fourth floor, and another agent – this one Dutch – glanced her way as she headed past him, towards the more publicly accessible areas of the fourth floor. Sure enough, there was some kind of break area not far from the elevators, and it was empty.

Riley peered into the microwave and fridge nook, making sure there wasn't a lone nurse hidden back there, and on the third ring, someone picked up the line.

"Hallo?"

"Uh, hi – guten tag," Riley stammered. It was a woman's voice, but she wasn't sure - "I'm returning a call from this number?

There was a brief pause. " Ah, is this Annamarie?"

Riley bit her lip. "No, it's . . . it's Annamarie's sister."

She'd told Nurse Sophie that Annamarie's sister would be the one calling for the results.

There was the softest sound of a sigh. "And how is Annamarie doing, dearie?"

Riley cleared her throat and started pacing around the small break area. "She's – she's fine. Just . . . tired. She . . . said you sent her an email?"

"I did," Nurse Sophie confirmed. "Has she had a chance to read it?"

Riley stared up at the ceiling for a minute, focusing on the pattern in the plastic that covered the fluorescent lights. Someone had told her once that staring up at a light would prevent your eyes from tearing up. Maybe Mac.

"No," she finally whispered.

Maybe she should have, but she sure as hell wasn't going to put the phone on speaker now. All she needed were the highlights. She could deal with the rest later.

"That's okay. I told her to call me if she had any questions," the nurse assured her. "And that sometimes the results need a little bit of interpretation."

"So there were? Results?"

The quiet laugh on the other end of the phone was warm. "Oh, yes. Even when they aren't, they are."

Riley swallowed, and paced over to the narrow window, staring out at the hospital parking lot. ". . . what does that mean?"

"Well, dearie, it means that most of the results came back 'inconclusive.' And all _that_ means," she added quickly, as she heard Riley take a breath to ask, "is that there wasn't enough data to say for certain one way or another what might have happened."

Riley let her forehead touch the cool glass, and stared down at the people, four stories below, walking in and out of the hospital. Inconclusive.

Nurse Sophie had warned her about that, even during the examination. That a test to detect the lubricant from a condom wouldn't necessarily find enough to be positive, particularly if it had been water-based. That just because someone else's DNA wasn't found on a swab didn't mean –

"But I can tell you that she tested negative for the big four, and the bloodwork confirmed the quick test that was run the day your sister was in the ER."

Meaning that she hadn't picked up any common STDs, and she wasn't pregnant.

"But . . . you couldn't tell anything else?" She could barely ask the question out loud.

"The machines couldn't," Nurse Sophie told her solemnly. "However, and it's just my own personal experience as a healthcare provider, typically in these situations, there are very obvious signs, or there are almost _no_ signs. Given the visible symptoms your sister presented with, I would have expected the tests to have made strong detections."

The bruises. The pulled muscles. Her shoulder, her scalp. Her clothes. The drugs.

Why . . . why do that, and then clean her up? Why make it painfully obvious in so many ways, but then less so in others?

In all the ways Mac would notice. She would notice. Because neither one of them was ever supposed to live long enough to be treated.

She was just a tool to control Mac. And if the police had seen through her shitty costume, had pulled the trigger, there would have been an autopsy –

And it would have showed this. Inconclusive.

So no one would ever know, not really. They'd simply wonder. They'd fear the worst.

"Now, I know she was hoping for something a little more definitive," the nurse said softly into the silence. "It's perfectly natural to be disappointed or confused with ambiguous results. If she wants to call me, at _any_ time, and talk about the things that are not on the report –"

"I'm sorry, I have to go," Riley mumbled, and she disconnected the call. Her hands were almost shaking too hard to unlock the smartphone, and she pulled up the phony email account and the report, waiting impatiently for the PDF to open.

It was exactly what Nurse Sophie had said it was. Inconclusive. A few things were negative. No latex detected, no unexplained oils. Traces of blood were inconclusive. Presence of swelling was inconclusive. Sophie had warned her about that, because of the captivity, because of the dehydration –

"Riley?"

She flinched hard, pressing the phone against her chest and mashing the power button to lock it, before she glanced over her should to find Grant Simmons, one of Phoenix's tactical leads, standing in the doorway. He was in plainclothes, no weapon visible, and his expression was one of concern.

Riley cleared her throat quickly, stuffing the phone in her back pocket as he entered the break area. "Hey. Just, uh, just taking a call."

He nodded, giving her a once-over as he approached. "Yeah, no problem, sorry to interrupt. Just, do me a favor . . ?" He gestured to the window.

Riley glanced back at it, then sidestepped, and she told herself it was to put concrete to her back, and not to dodge that outstretched hand heading for her shoulder. "Why, you know something I don't?" she asked him quickly, glancing back at the window again.

"No ma'am, you're way smarter than me," he assured her lightly. He also put his arm down, and took a casual step back. "We've got people outside, but I'd rather be safe than sorry, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah," she agreed quickly, and then flashed him a tight smile. "Sorry. I'll go back to daycare in just a sec."

The corner of his mouth turned up. "You were on coms when Ramirez said that?"

She managed a slightly more sincere smirk. "Yeah. That and a few choice words about whoever Harlan had working the floor. You boys competitive much?"

"Eh. Humor's a coping mechanism." Simmons rubbed the back of his neck, and there was absolutely nothing off about his tone, but Riley suddenly found it hard to look at him, and diverted to the beverage nook to help herself to some coffee.

Simmons didn't follow her; in fact, he took another step back, and Riley concentrated on keeping the coffee cup perfectly steady. He couldn't possibly have pieced together what she was talking about from her side of the conversation . . .

Could he?

Oh god. Simmons and Jack went back a long way. If he'd heard, then –

"Riley." His voice was soft and even, and she froze.

"You okay?"

Luckily the coffee machine had a tap, it wasn't a carafe. She wasn't sure she could have poured it without spilling.

"Yeah, just . . . jumpy. Guess I shouldn't have any more coffee, but . . ." She tried for sarcasm. "Search strings don't write themselves."

He wasn't buying it, and frankly, in his shoes, she wouldn't have either. "I'm sorry I startled you," he said, and it sounded like he meant it. "You're safe here, okay? No one's getting past us."

The same goddamn thing Saito had told her.

And she wasn't getting past him. He was by the door, and the break area was getting smaller by the second.

Her chest started to tighten.

She was doing it again. It was going to happen again, right here in this room. Right in front of Simmons. Riley intentionally took a deep breath, reaching up to grab a couple sugar packets as an excuse to hide it.

"Says the guy who just told me to stay away from windows," she quipped, and decided not to risk filling the cup more than halfway. "There, happy? I'm cutting back."

She turned, and saw that he'd retreated basically to the hallway. Like he knew. His hazel eyes, however, held no judgement. Only concern. "Seriously, though –"

"Yo, Grant, you got Davis in there?"

Simmons turned his head a little, in a mannerism that reminded her so much of Jack that it almost hurt, but his eyes never left hers. "Yeah. She's here, it's all good."

It was clearly a statement, but it was like he was waiting for her to agree.

And that if she didn't, he was going to tell Saito to take a hike.

"Awesome." Saito managed not to sound even remotely tired, though she knew damn well he'd been awake as long if not longer than she had. "Her presence is needed down on three."

Riley grabbed a plastic stirring stick and jabbed it at her cup, using the motion to hide any telltale shaking, and turned back to the door with an eyebrow bob that she hoped said 'uh-oh.' Simmons replied in kind, and backed into the hall.

"Matty summons?" Simmons inquired politely, and then she made it around the corner, and found Saito standing by the badge reader at the entrance of the STICU. He'd let the doors close, and he looked the way he always did. Nondescript clothes – different ones than he'd been wearing earlier, but still with the combat boots. His expression was calm and friendly. Like he had no idea what was going on.

Because nothing was going on. Her heart wasn't beating _that_ fast. She was fine, and she was going to drink the coffee, put the email out of her mind, and focus on getting those hostages back.

"No, not this time," Saito replied, and when she headed for the double doors – with Simmons not following too closely behind – he waved his badge at the grey block on the wall. He didn't offer any additional information, he simply made a grand gesture to the opening doors, like a maître d′ welcoming her into the establishment. A quick wave of dread tried to fill up the pit that the phone call had left, and Riley headed back into the STICU hallway.

Saito knew _exactly_ what was going on.

Simmons broke off from their little parade with a wave, and as soon as he turned for the stairwell, Saito quietly cleared his throat. "See that door on your right? Let's head in there. We need to talk."

Their temporary Ops setup on was on the left. To the right were treatment rooms – like Mac's – but she figured Saito was referring to the one nearer to them, with a classic doorknob rather than a hospital lever. She tried it and it turned easily, opening into a –

An office.

There were two leather couches along the walls, and three comfortable looking chairs in front of a wide, empty mahogany desk. A rich leather writing pad took up the vast majority of it, and a few odds and ends were lined up along the edge of it.

All things to fiddle with. Mac would have been in heaven –

Riley stopped, and took in the room again. Lots of seating. Open, non-claustrophobic. Soft carpeting, and wood panels on the wall. No file cabinet, bookcase filled with more things to play with.

Literally. The two bottom shelves held action figures, a folded up checker board, stuffed animals, and a tall orange Jenga cylinder.

This was the room reserved for when ICU visitors had to hear bad news. Had to make hard decisions.

Behind her, she heard the door close, and Riley stepped further into the room, and raised a shaking cup of coffee to her lips.

"Davis, that is literally the last thing you need right now."

"I got it," she replied, reasonably calmly, and took a second sip of the crappy coffee just because she could. "I'm fine, okay? I've got it handled."

Even only half full, she was very close to spilling, and she suddenly realized why the carpeting in the room was so dark. _Smart._

"Clearly you don't," Saito said, his voice a little harder than before, and she actually turned and gave him a look. He was near the door but not between her and it, leaning against one of the bookcases with his arms crossed, and this time his expression wasn't friendly.

It was serious. And maybe slightly pissed off.

He kept the anger out of his voice, though. "What was that?"

She gave him a blank look, and he cut her off before she could make something up. "You took off without warning into an unsecured section of the hospital and made an encrypted call. Why?"

Her ready response to Simmons seemed appropriate, until the word 'encrypted' caught her attention. "What do you mean?" she tried uneasily. He wouldn't know the call was encrypted unless he – or someone else – had tried to intercept it. "Did – did Phoenix tap my phone?"

He didn't look even slightly guilty. "That's standard procedure. _You_ wrote the software, which is why no one's surprised it didn't work. You wanna tell me what's so urgent you'd intentionally leave a secure perimeter to _handle_ it?"

They hadn't bugged the phone. They'd tried. Which meant they didn't have the email, they didn't know who'd called her unless someone tracked it to the cell tower, in which case it was only a matter of time until –

Until they realized it belonged to a nurse, and then it was child's play to figure out where she worked, and what shift, and what relationship she might have to one Riley Davis.

It didn't mean they'd get hold of the report. They could just think the nurse was following up on her, because of the human trafficking background, she could tell them it was just a courtesy call, and Sophie would back that up.

"It was nothing," she said quietly, trying to make it sound like an admittance. "I thought it might be –"

Across from her, the Japanese agent snorted. "You are _way_ off your game, and if you lie to me, the next person you'll be talking to is Matty." Somehow he made it sound like a warning, instead of a threat. "Look, all I need to know is that you're not endangering yourself or others. That it wasn't them, and they don't have leverage on you. Can you at least tell me that?"

Leverage.

The Turks. He thought – Phoenix thought – they might still have something on her. Might be reaching out to blackmail her the same way they'd done with Mac.

And they kind of did. Even with Aydin dead, there was no way to know who was – who was there. Hell, now she wasn't even sure the colonel was involved at all, or if it had been all Hakan, playing his fucked up games with Mac –

She was never going to know. Even if one of the guys they had in custody said something, she'd never be sure if they were lying or not. And if she didn't remember something like that, there could be other things. Just like Mac had said, there were holes where he didn't remember doing things, complicated things. If Hakan could do that to Mac, he could do it to her.

Riley opened her mouth, and found herself taking a short little breath instead of talking.

Saito leaned off the bookcase, as if he intended to close the distance between them, and Riley took an automatic step back.

"No," she heard herself say. "No, it wasn't them."

Saito stopped, and it was like he could see right through her. "You need to sit down –"

"I don't want to." This room was getting smaller too, and warm coffee trickled over her fingers. "It wasn't them. Can I go now?"

It occurred to her belatedly that she didn't need his permission, because she hadn't done anything wrong. She wasn't under arrest, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop her from walking out of that room, so she did.

And just like before, Riley hadn't taken more than two steps before Saito deliberately put himself between her and the door.

She barely smothered a hysterical laugh. "Really? This again?"

"You seem to need a refresher," he shot back, and took another step towards her. She only realized she'd given ground when she felt the backs of her calves brush one of the couches. "Riley, leaving the perimeter was reckless and stupid, and whatever that phone call was about, the secret was more important to you than your own _safety_. So what do they have? What are you afraid of?"

"Nothing! I don't know!" She knew it was only cornering herself further, but she retreated from the couch deeper into the room, towards the desk. "Look, it's none of your business, it has nothing to do with Phoenix. Okay? I promise I won't leave Ops again."

"Oh, you're not going back to Ops," Saito informed her flatly.

She slammed the somehow-cracked styrofoam cup down on the desk. "What the hell is the problem? I just told you I'm not compromised!"

"Of course you are, you're a damned agent who just lost a member of her team!" he shot back. "And instead of going to them, you're burying your head in the sand! What do you think Dalton is making of you avoiding him, huh? You went toe to toe with a world power last year just to get a _hint_ of where he might be, and now you won't even look him in the eye!"

It hurt more than she expected, and she whirled on him. "You don't know me," she snarled. "Go tell Matty whatever the fuck you want. But this? We're done here."

"They're not angry with you – they're _worried_ about you!" he practically shouted, and then heaved a short sigh, and modulated his voice. "Dammit, Riley, no one is blaming you for this! Just like no one is blaming you for – whatever it is you can't seem to tell me."

"I can't tell you what I don't know!" she snapped, completely without meaning to, and his expression slowly shifted from frustration to realization.

Riley closed her eyes.

He was right. She was way off her game.

"I don't know if they have anything," she growled defensively, without opening her eyes. It was easier to admit if she couldn't see him. "Okay? I don't know. There's . . . stuff I don't remember. Like that – that ugly ass INTERPOL photo."

Somehow her eyes were open again, she was staring at the rug. Couldn't even tell where the coffee had dripped. "I don't remember any video calls with Mac. I don't remember any videos at all. I could've . . . I could've told them anything."

"Okay. Take a breath and listen to me."

She took a breath – a belligerent one – but he stayed absolutely silent until she gave in, and glared at him. Most of the anger was gone from his face, and there wasn't as much sympathy as she'd feared.

"That was the same for Mac, last year. When you heard that, did you hate him?" He waited a beat. "Did you _blame_ him? Did you think he was weak, that he'd fucked up? Did you resent him because of all the work you had to do to make sure the Phoenix remained secure?" All of which was rhetorical, which Saito well know. "Of course not."

If only it was that easy. "What if we can't find the hostages because - because of something I told them? What if I wrote them a damn how-to manual on how to hide them from us?"

Saito made a dismissive sound. "That'd be helpful, actually. Then all you have to do is backwards engineer your best plan. Problem solved."

Of course, Saito had been on coms when Bozer had given her the same advice. "Yeah, not that simple. I could have told them exactly what we'd look for, the resources we have, the -"

The best ways to infect the cruise ships, and _to_ infect the cruise ships, to cause maximum distraction. Where to hide code, where to put honeypots to make it almost impossible to determine if the network was actually clean or not. How to hide network traffic in the sea of garbage Vodaphone administered. Which satellites to hack.

Holy shit.

"Riley?"

"She was a step ahead of me, that whole time," she said slowly. "That sneaky bitch."

He was watching her intently. "Iris?"

Riley looked at him, suddenly perfectly calm, and nodded. "That's why it took us so long to pin down the convoy. I think I told them exactly how to slow us down so they could get Aydin clear."

Mac said he'd seen them take her up the stairs, that she was supposed to be talking to the colonel. What if –

What if that's exactly what happened. The interrogation that Mac was afraid of. What if they'd taken her up to the colonel and she'd blabbed everything. And what happened after was just to distract them –

But it still didn't tell her what she needed to know.

What the fuck happened between telling them how to screw Phoenix, and waking up screwed with Mac.

"When?"

Riley blinked at him. "When . . . ?" Then she figured out what he was asking. "Uh . . . dinnertime, the night before last."

He was watching her carefully. "How do you know?"

Good question, since she couldn't exactly remember it – "Mac told me when I woke up," she admitted, a little stiltedly. "I don't remember much . . . I fought the guards, one of them stuck me, I – there were stairs . . . then I was back in the room."

In Mac's arms, lying on his chest. Scaring the shit out of him.

No wonder he'd thrown her off the boat, tried to do his thing without her.

But Saito was nodding. "Do you remember losing time like that . . anytime before Mac got to you?"

The look she gave him apparently answered his question. "Yeah. A couple." Before she'd figured out the drugs were in both the food and the water.

That must have been how they were knocking her out to have those calls with Mac. When she got back to her rig, she'd have to look up how often they'd happened, and when. That might help her put together a timeline of –

Of blanks. Blanks she could reconcile to events.

"Okay," he said quietly. "Worst case, you might have informed them of our capabilities, but they'd _clearly_ figured out how to get those passengers off that boat before they ever grabbed you. There wasn't enough time. Okay? This isn't on you." He seemed to forget himself, because he took a step towards her.

And just like that, her calm was gone.

Riley clamped down on anything that might be a tell. "Either way, the best chance of finding them alive is before they figure out Aydin's dead. I need to be in there-"

"You need to be downstairs," Saito repeated, a little more gently this time, and stopped a few steps in front of her. "You might not remember everything, but it's pretty clear that you remember enough. It's not those hostages that have you keyed up right now."

Riley found herself shaking her head. She wasn't sure which part she was disagreeing with. "I can't go down there. Okay? I – I _can't_. I can't – in front of Jack, not when Mac's –"

She couldn't even finish that sentence. And only then did Saito's words from earlier sink in. He'd said she was compromised because she'd just lost a teammate.

As in, past tense. Something that had already happened.

Her stomach lurched, and she searched his face, suddenly terrified. ". . . he . . . he didn't just . . ?"

"The doctors finally let Jack and Boze visit him," Saito told her gravely. "Mac's hanging in there, for now, but . . . if you want to see him, you should probably do it soon."

Riley honestly wasn't sure what to do with that piece of information. Sarcasm won out. "If I go in there, I'll probably punch him."

The agent across from her cracked a smile. "Hey, it might wake him up, just . . . avoid his head, okay?"

She snorted a laugh – sort of – and Saito's smile faded. "Listen to me. Whatever this is, whatever you think you might have said or done, whatever happened . . . Jack's not going to condemn you. He gets it, trust me. That guy is your biggest fan, and he loves you _fiercely_. But he's in a world of hurt right now. Kinda like someone else I know."

Riley found herself looking at the carpeting again.

"You don't have to be strong for him, or put on a front. He knows. But he's not going to get through this alone, Riley, neither is Bozer. And maybe neither are you. Go down there. Lean on each other. These fuckers may have taken Mac . . . don't let'em take the whole team."

-M-

"And so that's all we got," Bozer finished, making a helpless gesture to the air. "Still bupkis."

His roommate – his best friend – sighed quietly with help from the ventilator, and Bozer watched the tubes, counting the seconds to his next inhale.

He'd tried pacing it, but there was no way in hell he could keep that up - he'd pass out if he only took that few breaths a minute. Of course, he was awake and talking, and Mac was sleeping as deeply as a human being was capable of sleeping while still being technically alive.

Also, one of Mac's lungs had been skewered with a knife, and the less work they made that lung do, the better. And no matter how few breaths a minute, and how unhappy his lung, the monitor above his head said his oxygen stats were good.

The cold was partially helping with that, too. At least, it was helping Mac. It wasn't doing a damn thing for _him_ , and Bozer rubbed his arms through the thin, disposable smock.

"I hope wherever they are, they're warmer that we are," Bozer grumped out loud. "I dunno if you can feel it, but you're at hypothermia temps. I mean, I guess you _can't_ feel it, they said they'd usually have to administer a paralytic, but you never shivered even a li'l, so . . . trust me. You're not missing much. An' I don't mean that as a pun," Bozer added quickly. "Missing, get it? Like the passengers? Because you aren't missing, Mac. You're right here with me. Safe and freezin' your balls off in this hospital."

This was probably not the coldest Mac had ever been. "I mean, okay, I guess you and Jack had that op in Siberia or whatever, and that was worse. The frostbutt? That is somethin' I _definitely_ don't need to see again. In case you – or Jack – were wonderin'." He huffed out a little sigh. "I been through everythin', man. National parks. Hunting lodges. Ski resorts. These people are just _gone_."

Mac looked like he was frowning, a little bit, around the tubes taped to his mouth.

"I know you've got at least a dozen good ideas already," Bozer added glumly. "Nothin' stoppin' ya from sharin', you know?"

If Mac knew, he was keeping it to himself.

Wilt rubbed his arms again, careful not to damage the paper-like material of the smock. It was all part of infection control, which given the therapeutic hypothermia, coupled with the massive wound in his chest, was a near certainty. As far as Bozer knew, he hadn't shown any symptoms of it, but honestly, he wasn't sure what those symptoms would even look like. Not as if Mac could run a fever, and the cold was supposed to be reducing any kind of swelling.

"You don't have to talk," he offered quietly. "Just, like, twitch your finger or somethin'. Morse code works, I had to learn it in spy school."

Not that he could see Mac's hands. Most of him was tucked under a cooling blanket. The only visible parts of him were his head and the tops of his shoulders. He wasn't wearing a gown so that the doctors had easier access to his wounds and the central line they'd run into his chest, in lieu of the kind of IVs Bozer was used to seeing.

A central line let them dump a much greater volume of – well, anything they wanted - into Mac's body. And they could use it for dialysis, if it came to it.

It wasn't supposed to. Because Mac wasn't supposed to be alive long enough for it to matter.

"You're already beatin' the odds, man," Wilt assured him, a little hoarsely. "Just keep on doin' what you're doin'. We'll find those people, just you wait and see."

To his right, the door opened with the sharp crack of suction breaking, and one of Mac's many doctors entered the room. Just as they'd required of him and Jack, the doctor donned one of the yellow smocks, not even bothering to tie the back, and once he'd gotten his arms through the sleeves, he pulled a new pair of latex gloves over the ones he was already wearing.

It seemed like overkill, but they all did it. Anyone who was allowed to touch Mac did it.

The guy was also wearing a large surgeon's mask and a pair of safety glasses, making it next to impossible to see anything of his face. He didn't look their way, he simply went over to the built-in counter on the far wall and started grabbing implements and putting them on a tray. Bozer glanced back at Mac, who appeared unmoved, though he was still kind of frowning a little.

"I guess it's time to give you more tests," Bozer told him lightly. "You keep gettin' straight As, you hear me? Or so help me, I will make you regret it. Don't test _me_ , brah."

Mac obediently inhaled.

There was the sound of a key in a lock, and some rattling, and Bozer turned back to the door to see the doctor had unlocked a cabinet and was trundling out something about the size of a payphone. His tray of torture implements was balanced on top, and he wheeled the apparatus over, finally looking up.

Bozer got to his feet and gestured to the stool. "You need this, man, or -?"

The other man shook his head. "No, but I need to be where you're standing."

Bozer shuffled back to make space, then parked himself at the foot of the bed. His own face was hidden behind a mask, he had only his eyes to express how serious he was about not leaving, but the doc didn't try to chase him out. Instead, he started arranging his tools, and Bozer watched curiously as the doctor ripped open a small plastic packet and extracted a single cotton ball.

He captured the ball securely with a pair of forceps, then he set the assembly on the tray and turned to his patient. He ran a hand up Mac's face, and Bozer realized he was gently prising Mac's eyes open. When he let go, they stayed open, staring up blankly, as if Mac was actually looking out of them. The doctor studied them a moment, then nodded to himself and grabbed his cotton-ball laden forceps.

Without hesitating, he touched the cotton gently to Mac's open left eye.

From Bozer's position, it didn't look like anything happened. Mac's eye was still open – both of them were, and the doctor said nothing at all, tossing the used cotton ball at the sterile trashcan.

"What . . . what did that tell you?"

The doctor glanced over his shoulder, and even close up it was still hard to decipher his expression. His voice, however, was friendly enough.

"I'm testing his corneal reflex," he explained in lightly accented English. "The eyes are actually a direct outgrowth of brain tissue, the only directly visible part of the brain, in fact, so we know when we test these reflexes that we've got a direct link, and there's no pesky spinal cord or other nervous system components in the way."

Bozer blinked at the man, then realized his response was ironic – _then_ realized that 'eye-ronic' was a pun. He almost smiled and said it out loud, before he concluded the person most likely to find it funny was the least likely to laugh.

"And did he? I mean, was the reflex there?"

"Yes, the test was positive, just weak." The doctor turned back to his patient, this time with a large, clear syringe. There was a plastic cap on the end rather than a needle, and he removed it before bending over Mac's right ear.

"This is a caloric reflex test," he offered, this time without prompting. "This test will indicate whether his brain stem still has some functionality intact."

Whatever was in the syringe went into Mac's ear canal, then the doctor placed a surgical towel underneath to catch any leakage, and stared at his eyes for a good thirty seconds. This time Bozer could actually see the result from his perch; Mac's blank eyes seemed to shift a little, to the right.

"Was he supposed to do that?"

He heard a little exhale; he wasn't sure if he was irritating the neurologist or making him laugh, and honestly he didn't care. He just wanted to know what the hell was going on.

"Yes, he was." There was a smile in the voice, and Bozer relaxed a little. "Depressed but present."

He had the feeling 'depressed' wasn't in reference to Mac's mood. "Does the cold not affect that?"

The doctor toweled off the side of Mac's face, then folded up the blue cloth and tossed it at the other sterile container, marked 'LINENS'.

"It can," he said noncommittally. "But it would usually take temperatures at least five degrees lower than these to depress these reflexes. If we lose response to these two, we'll certainly bring him back up to a normal body temperature and test again before we make any kind of conclusion."

It reminded Bozer of one of the rules of first aid – you're not dead until you're warm and dead. People that had fallen into freezing water or been buried in avalanches had been successfully resuscitated even after hours had passed. He wasn't sure how cold those people had been compared to Mac, but he knew the doctor was probably right.

If Mac stopped responding to those two tests, it would mean –

It would mean there was no hope left.

The doctor pulled something out of the pocket of his labcoat, from underneath the smock – a little eyedropper bottle – and applied two drops each to Mac's eyes. He left them open. "And if you think that's cool, wait 'til you see this," he offered, and then pocketed the eyedrops and reached around himself for the piece of equipment on the table beside him.

"Is that an ultrasound machine?" Bozer asked, and the doc's eyebrows crawled up above the frame of his safety glasses.

"Good eye, Mr . . . ?"

"Bozer. Wilt Bozer," he replied, and decided to leave it there. He wasn't really sure what Matty – or Harlan – had been telling the staff about them. And there was no real point in sharing that the only reason Bozer knew what this kind of ultrasound machine looked like was because he sometimes used them when silicone was curing to make realistic flesh folds.

"And how do you know Luka here?" The doctor started flipping switches and prepping the machine.

That was easier to answer. "Best friends growin' up. His, uh, his mom died when he was little, and his dad left when he was ten, so . . . he spent a lotta time at my place."

The neurologist gave a thoughtful nod, and then took what looked like a thick, stubby plastic wand and placed it firmly against Mac's right temple. "Have you been talking to him?"

Now it was Bozer's turn with the eyebrows. "Well . . . yeah . . . is that a problem . . .?"

Another soft exhale. "No, absolutely not. In fact, we encourage it. Hearing is typically the last sense to go, and the memories we make when we're young are the most resilient and deeply ingrained. Always assume a comatose person can hear you, and while he might not understand where he is or what's happening, the odds are that he'll recognize on some level that your voice is familiar."

If there was enough of him left to recognize anything. Bozer had been struggling with that all day. Hope that Mac could hear him, and knew that he wasn't alone, that he was safe – but then if Mac knew he wasn't alone, if he could hear and understand even that much, then -

"Is he in pain?" Bozer asked in a small voice.

The doctor adjusted the wand, his eyes on the ultrasound monitor. "No, I don't think so. His body isn't receiving instructions from his brain, and typically that means traffic has been cut off both ways. He shouldn't feel any pain from the chest trauma. I think the worst case would be a pretty wicked migraine, and he would only be aware of it in the most vague sense."

Bozer hoped that was true. "He's still getting worse, though."

The neurologist actually turned to look at him. "Yes, I'm afraid he is," he confirmed, and then his mask sucked in a little. "We've only slowed his decline, not stopped it."

It wasn't anything he didn't already know, but it still felt like a gut punch. "So what are you looking for?"

The neurologist kept watching him, rather than his ultrasound monitor. "I'm measuring the pressure inside his cranium. Typically we'd do a lumbar puncture, which would also give our hematology department something to do, but it's pretty hard to lay a ventilated patient on their stomach for an hour after the procedure, and we're too worried about infection. We'll go as non-invasive with him as we can, for the time being."

Wilt nodded woodenly, and the doctor eventually turned back to his monitor. "And if you're asking me _why_ I'm looking, it's because the data we gather now, even if we can't use it to help Luka, can help the next patient we admit here."

And that was something he knew Mac would be behind one hundred percent.

Bozer was silent after that, watching the machine taking various readings. It was only when the neurologist tilted his head, and moved the wand for about the fifth time, that he finally started to realize something was wrong.

"What's the matter?"

The doctor didn't immediately answer; he set the wand in its stand, then reached behind his smock into his labcoat again and pulled out an iPhone. He scrolled through a couple colorful menus before making a selection, then dropped it back in his pocket.

Then he ripped open an alcohol pad and wiped down his latex gloves.

"His pressure reading is about the same as the last couple times we took it," he finally replied, taking care to saturate every crevice of the glove that had touched the iPhone. "In fact, it might actually be slightly better."

Bozer parsed through that. "That's. . . a good thing, right?" Less pressure meant less swelling, which meant the cold and the other treatments were doing what they were supposed to.

"Maybe," the doctor agreed vaguely. "Keeping swelling down has been one of our main objectives. Our techs are going to come up from Imaging and take him for an MRI. It'll be at least an hour." The alcohol pad went into the trashcan, and the doctor flipped off the machine, then stared again at Mac's eyes. After a moment, he reached out and gently pulled them closed.

Mac had no reaction.

"Will you be staying on three with the other agents? Either Dr. Meijer or I will come find you and communicate any results."

The doctor's movements became suddenly brisk as he gathered his tools together. It all sounded terribly final.

"So . . . you're thinking it could be bad . . ?" Bozer tried tentatively.

The doctor paused, both hands on the trolley pushbar. "I can't say one way or the other until we get a peek inside." It sounded truthful. "A lack of pressure increase could mean that his brain has stopped trying to heal itself, or lost the capability of detecting damage. And if his pressures have stabilized, there must be another physiological reason for the continued deterioration."

So if the swelling had gone down, his reflexes shouldn't still be getting worse.

Bozer bit his lip. "What else do you think could be happening?"

The doctor surprised him by leaving the ultrasound machine and its tray, and coming to stand beside him. His eyes were still on Mac.

"Again, hard to say. If you're worried about not being here when all brain function ceases, don't. He'll most likely continue this gradual decline over a period of hours, maybe even days. If there's been another complication, such as a stroke . . . we'll be able to spot that relatively quickly, and I will personally come and get you."

Bozer nodded, unable to stop the tear before it escaped his eye, but the mask on his face absorbed it almost immediately.

"You've been talking to him," the neurologist observed. "Was there anything else you wanted to say, before the techs come?"

Another tear followed the first. "Naw. I already told him . . . that I'm not gonna say goodbye. So if that's what he's waitin' for . . . he's gonna wait a long time."

The doctor made a noise of agreement. "Is he stubborn?"

"The worst," Bozer replied. "Can't make that guy do anything he doesn't want to."

"Well, that might explain it then." The doctor reached up and gave Bozer's shoulder a friendly squeeze, then he went to retrieve the machine. "Luka's not done anything the way we expected, so I'm not surprised that's the case."

Sounded like Mac. Bozer took a shuddering breath, then swallowed the rest of his tears. ". . . so we should know something in an hour?"

"Yes sir. It'll be Dr. Meijer who comes down if there's any significant finding."

Bozer frowned and turned with the doctor as he started to push his machine back towards its cubby in the cabinet.

"She's not exactly generous in the information department."

Another soft exhale, that Wilt was almost certain was a laugh. "I know Ines can seem a little cold, but she's one of the best neurologists in the world. Please understand, by the time we see patients, most of them are beyond our help, and we lose them." Bozer noticed that the doctor didn't lump Mac into that group, and he appreciated it.

"That . . . manner she has, that's how she's able to set her emotions aside and make the best choice for the patient." The neurologist paused and used his toe to ease open the cabinet door. "Don't think for a second that she's not personally invested in Luka and his outcome. There was a _lot_ of active debate during rounding this morning about Luka, and how to continue treatment."

Bozer glanced back at him in surprise. "You argue?"

"Absolutely. The best treatment neurologically is the worst treatment from an infection perspective, and it's not helpful for penetrating trauma, either. This combination of symptoms . . . the chest trauma alone was life-threatening, even before the neurological complications."

He knew Mac would have been in the ICU either way, but –

But knowing that the knife wound was the _less_ critical of Mac's injuries only cemented the fact that he was going to lose his best friend, whether he said the words or not.

Two men in scrubs hurried past the observation window, glancing inside, and Bozer wasn't surprised to see them head for the door.

The techs he'd mentioned.

"That was fast."

The neurologist nodded, and started peeling off all the infection prevention gear. "That's a perk of being in the STICU. When we ask for resources, we get them. They'll take good care of him."

The gentle reminder that it was time to go still irked him, and Bozer reluctantly turned back to the bed as he heard the techs enter. They were speaking in Dutch, not English, so Wilt tuned them out.

"I'm not sayin' goodbye, Mac," he growled at his roommate. "I'm _not_ gonna do it. You hear me?"

This time it took the ventilator a few seconds to make Mac respond, his exhale sounding slightly put-upon, and Bozer gave the bedframe a couple pats and turned for the door. He shed his smock, gloves, booties, and mask where he was supposed to, exiting into the hallway, and watched the techs don theirs before heading for Mac.

He didn't stick around to supervise; hours and hours of watching had only taught him that it scared the shit out of him every time they moved suddenly, or stopped moving, or hesitated – even when they were doing their jobs like machines it scared him. He was just so worn out.

Tired of being scared.

He wondered if Mac was feeling the same way.

 _Naw, dawg. You're not scared of anything except heights. Bravest guy I know. Way braver than me._

So he spent a few minutes in the little boy's room, making himself look slightly less haggard and heartbroken, and then he took the stairs at the end of the hall, and the agent in the stairwell badged him into the third floor.

Wilt still found himself dragging as he headed to the room he knew he needed to visit next. He set his face on 'default' in the hopes it would cause neither false hope nor unnecessary dread, and then he pressed the lever on the door and pushed it open.

Jack was in the bed, which surprised Boze a little. What was more surprising – he seemed to be asleep.

What was not surprising was how bad he looked.

Wilt hesitated, then let himself in, and quietly closed the door. When he turned back around to find the recliner, he almost screamed.

Almost.

His chair was occupied by a dark-haired hacker, who was arching a brow at his muffled yip, and he shot her a death glare and pressed his hand into his chest just to make sure his heart hadn't lurched right out of it.

"Are you kidding me?!" he hissed at her, and Riley straightened a little, giving him a reproachful look of her own.

"Hi to you too," she snarked back quietly. "Don't wake him up."

"That's my line!" he retorted, still quietly, and then crossed the room. She met him halfway, and he pulled her in tight.

They'd been talking, on coms, on messenger, but it was the very first time since before she'd left for that hacker conference – which was at least a hundred years ago - that he'd actually gotten to hug her. Touch her. Get that tactile reassurance that she was well and whole and okay. All the work he'd done to keep his shit together up to that point evaporated, and he felt her arms tighten around him.

They didn't say anything for a little while after that.

Riley pulled away first, giving his back a little rub as she did, and Bozer nodded and wiped his face. "They, uh, they took Mac for an MRI."

"Oh. So there was a change?"

Bozer shook his head. "Not for the better."

Riley pressed her lips together and nodded, and Bozer quietly cleared his throat. "How long's Jack been sleepin'?"

"I don't know. He was out when I came down, about half an hour ago? The nurse was in, said he'd finally accepted some pain medication."

They turned and studied the bed, which was easier than looking at each other for sure. Jack was pale, and the skin around his eyes still managed to look puffy and tight all at the same time. Someone had stuffed him into scrubs instead of the normal hospital gown – probably when he went to see Mac. He was starting to sport some scruff, and even under the bruises his skin had a sallow quality to it that Bozer didn't remember from last night.

Crying must have been hell on those ribs.

"He went up and saw Mac, but that was a couple hours ago. We gotta take shifts, but you can have the next one, if you want –"

Riley mutely shook her head.

Bozer tried for humor. "I told him you were pissed off."

Her head kept shaking, a little more emphatically. "I'm not," she said hollowly. "I'm . . . I'm fucking _furious_ , Boze. He lied to my face to make me get off that boat, and if I'd been there-"

"Hey," he cut her off, and took one of the hands fisting at her side. "Then it would be the both of you up there."

Riley yanked her hand away like he'd scalded it. "Yeah, because what the fuck could I do, I'm just an analyst."

He blinked at her, taken aback at the venom in her tone. "Hey, girl, you know that's not what I-"

"I'm not even a good one of those," she continued hotly, though her voice was still quiet. "Dammit, I can't find one fucking digital trace of a hundred and twenty fucking people. It's not _possible_ , Boze."

He sighed, quietly, and she stalked back to the recliner and threw herself into it.

She wasn't wrong, and he understood her frustration and helplessness all too well. Frankly he was floored she was down here without her laptop, and he suspected Matty had something to do with that.

"I know. I've been goin' over everything I can think of. I even tried hashing it out with Mac," he admitted into the thick silence. "He's the only guy I know that personally made someone vanish into thin air."

The recliner made a little snapping noise as she shifted. "Of course he did."

"I mean, not literally. He went through a David Copperfield phase when we were kids. More the illusion stuff than sleight of hand." The corner of his mouth turned up at the memory. "I know he's workin' on some kinda fabric that bends light or somethin', like a . . . a real world Invisibility Cloak. I don't think he's finished it yet, though."

And now he never would.

Damn, that lab was gonna be full of prototypes that never got tinkered with, not ever again. Sure, some of the projects would be taken on by others, like Sparky, like some of his chemical concoctions. The ones with military applications, for sure. Whether the think tank part was a cover or not, they really did have an R&D department, and agents counted on their work.

But the other ones, the quirky, whimsical ones, like the snow machine he made for Christmas . . . the hot tub . . . hell, even the grill –

Shit. If Mac wasn't around to confirm that thing was in working order, he didn't dare ever use that grill again.

. . . it was Mac's house.

It was Mac's house. When they got home, he was gonna have to go into Mac's house. Full of Mac's stuff.

"Well, I guess that takes an Invisibility Cloak off the list, then." Riley cleared her throat. "So how did he do it? When you were kids?"

Bozer wiped his face again, and grabbed the second seat in the room, which was on the other side of Jack's bed. "Old magician's trick. Everybody has blind spots in their vision – like, when you focus on something, your eye and your brain ignore other areas like your peripheral vision, and some other places above and below what you're focusin' on. So you make the person look one way, and yoink the thing you're tryin' to hide in the other."

This time the grin wormed all the way across his face. "He tried it out on our physics professor, who said a person was too big a thing to be able to move in the span of time it takes the eye to refocus. Mac bet him that he could make the professor disappear, in front of the whole class."

That had been a fun class. "They stood behind one of the chemistry benches, had a couple cushions from the couch in the teacher's lounge hidden back there. He told Mr. Noles that when he gave him the signal, to take a step closer to him. So Mac makes this little puff of smoke – I mean, small for our boy, anyway - and everybody figures that it's just to hide Mr. Noles ducking behind the bench, so they're all staring at it, you know? But then one of the overhead lights flashed, and Noles was just . . . gone."

Riley was curled up in the recliner, but her angry expression had melted a little into curiosity. "So what did he do?"

"Well, when Mr. Noles stepped closer to Mac, he didn't realize Mac had greased the floor tile. He'd figured out the angle of the slide that would drop Noles the fastest, onto the cushions. He'd disappear from view in less than a second, but he'd be fine, you know? But what Mac _didn't_ calculate was Mr. Noles grabbing the countertop to try to catch himself. He ended up breaking his tailbone. Hadda sit on one of those donut cushions for like a month."

The smallest smile crossed Riley's face. "I don't know how the two of you ever graduated. And I don't know how you'd grease a semi through anything."

Yeah. Probably not the way Aydin's guys had made the passengers disappear. "He used that illusion trick a lot, actually – mostly to disappear himself. Like the time he and one of his grandad's friends decided to 'fix' the sprinkler system at the American Legion."

"Wait. Even with actual adult supervision, he _still_ burned down an American Legion hall?"

"Oh, they didn't burn it down. They flooded it," Wilt corrected. "So picture this, an old World War Two destroyer engineer and . . . Mac hadda been around thirteen? He'd gone to the hall with Harry for, like, a fish fry or somethin'. Hey, it was a small town," he defended, at Riley's unimpressed look. "Anyway, Mac and this old engineer got to talkin', about ships and stuff, and how flammable the grease was, and how the sprinklers weren't to code, and before you know it, no one's seen the two of 'em for like half an hour."

Wilt hadn't actually been there for this one, but enough people had described it to him that he may as well have been. "Well, they definitely fixed the sprinklers, and once the kitchen got hot enough, from all the fryin' fish, they went off. They'd jacked the PSI so high that the pipes actually ripped off the ceiling and sprayed everyone down like firehoses. And you know how well water and hot oil mixes."

Riley blinked at him. "Holy shit. Did anyone get hurt?"

Bozer shook his head. "Nah, they just put the covers on the fryers and cut water to the building. An' out come this old dude and Mac, all soaking wet and dejected, and the fire marshal's yellin' at 'em, and that gets somebody's old drill sergeant goin', and there were twenty people around easy, including Harry – and suddenly they all see that Mac's not standin' there beside the engineer anymore. He's just gone. He literally walked out of the circle of people without anyone noticin'. Everybody there was so angry, they got tunnel vision, and if you move slow enough, it's like they can't see you movin' at all. He just crept away, and no one saw a thing."

The hacker smirked a little. "Yeah, well, something tells me he didn't get away scot free."

"Oh hell no. He'd just gotten tired of gettin' yelled at, and gone back into the hall to start cleaning things up. And tweakin' the sprinklers. A couple years later, there really _was_ a fire, and they worked like a charm."

Harry hadn't really even been all that mad. Kinda hard to yell at a soggy kid holding a mop. And Mac's heart was usually in the right place. Helping people, and learning about science.

"So was that some thinly veiled warning that we're looking at this with tunnel vision?"

Wilt thought about it. "Nah. I'm too tired to be that clever. But," he added, "maybe we are."

Maybe the tunnel was that he wanted so badly for those people to still be alive.

Even when it looked like that just wasn't possible.

Bozer rubbed his aching eyes, then focused back on Jack, who had managed to sleep through the whole conversation. "Maybe we oughta be searching for places you could dump a lotta bodies."

The room was quiet for a moment. "We are," Riley finally admitted. "Chemical and packing plants, storage warehouses, dumps, national parks . . . if they killed them, it would have been for convenience. They wouldn't need the bodies to disappear forever, just for a week. We still should have found them by now."

"What about the ocean?"

". . . using another one of the cruise line's boats?" Finally, there was a little inflection in Riley's voice. "I don't think anyone _did_ think of that . . . but there wasn't any disruption to any of the other planned cruises out of Amsterdam or Rotterdam." He heard Riley shift, then huff out an irritated sigh. "My rig's upstairs, or I'd check."

Bozer's own laptop was actually sitting on the shelf, directly above Riley's head, but she apparently hadn't noticed it when she came in, and Bozer wisely decided not to tell her about it. If she'd been chased down here to rest, that was what she needed to be doing.

"Look, there's not gonna be any news on Mac for an hour, and Jack's out like a light. That recliner is actually pretty comfy. I'll wake you up if anything exciting happens?"

She didn't answer him, but she didn't pull out the footrest either, and Bozer let it go.

He wasn't too happy about being told what to do right now either. _Go sit and wait like a good boy in a room until we feel like dealing with you._

Maybe that was why Mac had skulked out of that circle and started cleaning up the mess. Not just guilt, but because the waiting to see how bad something got was harder than the cleaning it up.

. . . which ought to mean the funeral was going to be not as bad as this. Which Bozer knew was impossible.

There was no cleaning this up. There was no fixing the hall. There was no mopping up the mess and drying out the curtains and replacing the books.

There was no replacement.

Mac was irreplaceable.

The sprinkler was never going to get fixed, and everything was going to burn down to the ground.

Weirdly, Bozer found himself wondering if that old engineer was even still alive. How many World War Two veterans were still out there? He'd been Harry's age, and Harry was long gone. But there were probably still some vets alive. Maybe even here in Amsterdam.

And they didn't have American Legion halls . . . but maybe they had something else like it . . .

Where a whole bunch of old people congregated and talked about the good old days and tinkered with the sprinklers at fish fries.

Bozer pushed himself to his feet and crossed the room. Riley gave him a wary look as he approached her, but he didn't say anything. He just reached up and grabbed his laptop, then handed it to her.

"Did you add WVF halls to our search?" It was the kind of community center that no one but the old people paid any attention to. Had handicapped accessible bathrooms, electricity, water, a kitchen, even sleeping areas. The most exciting thing that ever happened at them was bingo.

And any military vet would know that. Turkey was a founding member of the World Veterans Federation. If you asked a bunch of soldiers where to hide old people –

Riley blinked at him, then hastily uncrossed her legs and popped the laptop open. In less than a minute it was booted up and she'd logged in.

She glanced at a few screens, but the windows were going by too fast for Bozer to follow. "No," she said after a second. "There are four BMNO community halls in the Netherlands." Riley did something else, then rooted around in her scrub pants, coming up with her com. She clicked it on and stuck it back in her ear.

Bozer did the same.

"Mila, I'm sending you four addresses. What can you tell me about them?"

Her voice was clipped, no longer quiet, and on the bed, Jack sighed, then shifted a little. They both glanced at him, but he didn't move again.

In Bozer's ear, his com popped. "These are . . . World Veteran Federation centers –"

"Yes," Riley confirmed impatiently. "Are any of them open?"

"Davis, I know that's not your voice I'm hearing." That was definitely _not_ Mila, and Bozer winced.

"Sorry, man, it's my fault. We had an idea."

Saito didn't reply, which either meant he was letting it go, or he was about to come into the room and take their coms away. Luckily, Visser came back pretty quickly.

"Two are currently active. One has been permanently closed. The other . . . closed for repairs just over two weeks ago."

Bozer and Riley stared at each other.

"Closed for like . . . planned renovations, or closed because of something hinky?"

Riley started typing again. "I'll see if we have any satellites in position."

"Failed building inspection," Mila told them. "It was an unscheduled inspection, but the paperwork seems accurate . . ."

"I doubt a local government office would be difficult for Aydin's hacker to compromise," Jill's voice popped up. "Okay, Riley, I see what you're doing. Let me –"

"Yeah, perfect," Riley agreed. And then a window popped up, and green land started to resolve as a satellite feed came up.

It took a little while to build, as they usually did, and Bozer couldn't help drumming his fingers on the back of Riley's chair as it loaded. "Come on, come on, _please_ tell me we got somethin'-"

A brown roof resolved, and Bozer saw that the building was large. Easily large enough to accommodate two hundred bingo players. It was surrounded by a sea of cracked pavement, with neat but faint white lines. There was only one car visible, parked off to the side rather than in front of the building. Nothing seemed to be moving.

It was a little ways off the road, tucked into the trees, and the place looked deserted.

Riley toggled the image to infrared. Bozer counted four yellow-orange images, all in the shapes of people, in a general square in the treeline around the building.

Like guards.

The building itself was also giving out a little heat, including two exhaust fans on the roof. Someone was definitely inside.

"I'm alerting the local DSI." Mila's voice was calm and even. "I'll also liaise with the regional unit. Someone notify the deputy director."

There was hardly a pause. "I'm aware," Wolff confirmed. I'll be there in a moment."

Bozer held back the whoop with effort. Just because they might have found them, it didn't mean it was gonna be easy. "Okay, so . . . now what? Local SWAT goes in?"

As it turned out, the _Dienst Speciale Interventies_ – Dutch counterterrorism – pulled the lucky straw. They were a good half-hour into the op before Jack stirred again, but he wasn't able to find a comfortable place to lie, and ended up right where he'd started without opening his eyes. Bozer was watching him, trying to decide if that meant he needed more pain meds, or they needed to wake him up, when his com popped.

"DSI is establishing a perimeter. We'll have their vest cam feeds in two." It was Jill, not Mila. "Riley . . . I've been working trying to get video of the semi either entering or leaving the general vicinity of the WVF building. The closest cameras are the ones near Kasteel Heeze, which is still thirty minutes out, and I think we got a hit."

The image popped up on Riley's screen. It was a still, not a video, but it was definitely their lumber truck. Instead of a load of wood, it actually had a freight shipping cargo container on it, like the kind you moved by train. The logo said 'DB Schenker'.

"When was that?"

"The night the _Panorama_ docked and its new set of passengers boarded," Jill answered promptly. "I think this is it."

"Looks that way," Riley agreed, zooming in on the picture. "Different tags on the truck, but . . . that's definitely it."

It was the strongest indication so far that they'd finally found the right location, and Bozer held out his fist. Riley bumped it with a grin.

You didn't guard dead people. If the passengers were truly in there, they were probably still alive.

Someone else's voice popped over the coms, in Dutch, and then Riley's screen filled with images.

The DSI agents' chest cams were up.

They were good. It was a lot like watching a Phoenix tac team at work. They stalked the four men outside – all in nondescript clothing, but all armed – and took them down silently and efficiently. No one got off a shot, not even a shout. Once the men were unconscious, they were secured while the second wave advanced on the building.

It was large and aged, clearly having been built sometime in the fifties out of tan brick. The exterior was austere and undecorated, and every one of the evenly spaced windows seemed to be boarded up from the inside. The chest cams were a little bouncy, so it was hard to focus on things – even harder because the laptop screen was small, and there were so many of them – but it didn't look like any of the glass was broken.

The video came with audio, but it was all in Dutch, and Riley turned it down as Jack shifted again in the bed.

Bozer followed her gaze. "Should we wake him up . . . ?"

Riley shook her head. "Let him sleep. At least until – until we hear about Mac."

At least until they had either good news – or bad news.

The back door of the hall was checked for wires or explosives – as best they could – before a four man team breached the door. They blew off the hinges with shaped charges, so that the door fell flat into the doorway, and for a second, all the camera saw was dust and darkness.

Something came flying out of the shadows, striking one of the agents in a cloud of white smoke, and Bozer heard the agent start coughing. He sought out another camera angle, on an agent further behind, and saw –

Saw an older man, maybe early seventies, snatching up what looked like a five pound bag of flour off a table stocked with them.

He grabbed it and hurled it like a pro pitcher, and the bag exploded on contact with another agent, throwing even more flour into the air and choking everyone in the room.

One of the side entrances had been breached at the same time, and Bozer saw something similar unfolding. Little steel-haired ladies were standing behind two bookcases, which had been laid on their sides, one stacked on top of the other, and they were chucking the contents at the agents trying to get through the door.

Bozer blinked, listening to the cacophony of shouting – there was Dutch, but there was also some French and German in there. Camera after camera showed senior citizens, not soldiers.

Riley was just staring at the screen. "What the . . .?"

Their com channel was similarly surprised. "Are those the . . . passengers . . . ?"

As the agents managed to overwhelm – or con – the door guards and get access to the building, things became a little clearer. Luggage had been stacked against all the windows, and neat rows of sleeping pallets created from spare clothing, chair cushions, and what few mattresses had probably been in the building lined the floors in the interior rooms. A dining area, with long tables, had been set up in the main room. The entire place was heavily fortified, but from the inside, and as each room was cleared, it became apparent.

There were no Turks inside the building. No soldiers, no bombs. No guns.

But there had _definitely_ been Turks outside the building. Four of them.

". . . did the passengers . . . lock Aydin's men out of the building . . .?"

"It looks that way." Visser sounded just as surprised as they did. "They're saying 'soldiers are not welcome'."

Four soldiers versus over a hundred pissed off grandparents. Potentially old soldiers themselves mixed in with the elite. They had their luggage, so they had their medication, their toiletries, their clothes . . .

Clearly someone had confiscated their electronics, and cut the phone lines, but . . . whether the passengers were in control of the building or not, as long as they stayed in it, Aydin's men probably hadn't figured it was worth attracting attention trying to shoot their way back in.

At least not til they had orders.

"The building's clear," another Dutch analyst declared. "Medical and the local politie are moving in."

There was no way to know how many of the passengers were in there – all of them or just some of them – but it was definitely a win, and Bozer hissed out a " _Yes!_ " and nudged Riley in the shoulder from his perch on the arm of her chair.

She was grinning at the screen, watching an older woman giving one of the DSI agents the verbal dressing down of his life. "We should go tell Matty -"

"Already taken care of," Jill chirped in their ear. "Riley, I meant to ask you earlier . . . how did you know?"

Riley looked up at him, still smiling. "It was all Boze."

But that wasn't true. "Actually, it was Mac," he admitted, then glanced at his watch. That hour had already come and gone, and still no word from Meijer. Or the other guy – Boze hadn't even gotten his name.

"Oh . . . has there been any change?" Jill's voice was hopeful.

"No. They . . . took him for some tests."

He could hear Jill's disappointment over the dead air, and the beautiful smile – one of the first real ones he'd seen on Riley's face since all this started – faded like a popped balloon.

Bozer glanced back at Jack to find the older man was still trapped in his restless, painful sleep. And in all honesty, right now Jack probably didn't give a damn about those passengers. No point in waking him up when they still didn't have the news Jack wanted to hear.

But Mac would. Mac would want to hear it.

 _We got 'em, man. We found 'em. Thanks to you._

Thanks to one little trip down memory lane. Thanks to magic, in a way. Mac didn't believe in that stuff, but –

It hit him all at once.

Bozer smiled, sadly, then glanced up at the ceiling. Nothing there. Of course there was nothing there.

He didn't realize he was crying until Riley's voice broke the silence. "Hey. Hey, Boze . . ."

Then her warm hand found its way into his.

His smile became broader, and shakier, because it was going to sound absolutely ridiculous when he said it out loud, but he grabbed her hand and squeezed it back.

"I was just thinkin' . . . I _just_ finished askin' him for help. Told him he didn't have t'talk, that he could use Morse code, really anythin', you know? And . . . to have that story pop into my head . . . I wasn't even there, Riley. I heard about it secondhand. Hadn't thought about it in years. An' . . . he shoulda been outta testing half an hour ago. They, uh . . . they said he's gettin' worse but there was no explanation . . . so maybe . . ."

Bozer shook his head, then quickly wiped his face. He didn't let go of her hand. "I dunno . . . maybe . . . this was the only way he could help."

She didn't make fun of him, she just laid her head against his arm, and Bozer looked down at her in surprise. There was a funny little quirk to her lips, almost like she wanted to smile, but she couldn't quite get there.

"Hey . . . no matter what happens, Mac will _always_ be watching out for you. Always. No matter what. Like a . . . a guardian angel that's super hard on phones." Bozer sobbed out a laugh, and Riley joined him. "But he wouldn't call it a guardian angel."

"No," Wilt agreed. "He'd call it . . . like, an ectoplasmic amorphous intelligence, or something."

But it didn't really matter what Mac would call it. If his roomie was putting things into his head, the how notwithstanding, it meant Mac was no longer in his own.

If Mac was his guardian angel, it also meant that Mac had already entered the pearly gates.

-M-

The screen flickered as the dashboard refreshed, and Dr. Ines Meijer glanced up at the new files, then rescued her reading glasses from the desk and walked over to the display. She flicked through the first couple slowly, studying them intently, but by the time she'd viewed the first half dozen, it became readily apparent that she was wasting her time.

Ines glared at the touchscreen, then backed out of the images and checked the patient record number.

 _Verdomme_.

She fished her iPhone out of her coat pocket and hit the direct dial. Whatever clown was down there, he picked up on the second ring.

"Imaging."

"I'm calling in reference to the patient scanned at –" and she checked the timestamp on the images, "eleven twenty."

There was a brief pause. "Yes, doctor?"

"Will you please read to me the patient's MRN number?"

He did so. It was a match – and six digits shorter than a normal patient MRN number, indicating it was a VIP patient. All of which was correct.

And very clearly _not_ correct.

"Would you please describe that patient to me?"

The technical hesitated. "I . . . I don't understand what you mean, doctor –"

"Describe the patient," she snapped. "Male, female, tall, short, ventilated, not ventilated-"

"Uh," the man stammered. "Uh, male. Caucasian, blond hair, mid-twenties. Ventilated, IVTMed with external pacemaker."

The IVTM was the relevant detail – as far as she knew, there were no other neurology patients undergoing intravascular temperature management at the hospital at this time.

But that was impossible.

"Then why are another patient's images saved to his record?" She flicked through the various uploaded images. "Including three cervical scans that were never ordered for that patient?"

"Dr. Teuling was in the booth during the initial tests, and ordered several more." The technician sounded genuinely confused, and Ines backed out of the dashboard and entered the hospital's main system.

Sure enough, he was right. Hendrik had ordered the additional spinal imaging.

As if he'd heard his name taken in vain, the STICU physician lounge doors opened, and her slightly disheveled resident hurried in. The moment he saw that she already had the images up his expression fell.

"So much for the surprise," he muttered, mostly to himself, and that comment was enough to get Nora's attention. Ines ignored the other doctor completely.

"Explain," she commanded, and hung up the iPhone.

-M-

I missed my Friday deadline, not that anyone is surprised. I just wanted to get to a point where something had changed, so the story didn't feel so slow.

In summary – Riley got back some of the results from the tests she had done right after she'd been rescued, and they didn't tell her what she really wanted to know. Whether she's ready to or not, she's going to have to face Jack and Bozer. Wilt, meanwhile, is trying to deal with the reality that's in front of him, and it seems like Mac's not quite done – a secondhand childhood memory leads Bozer to realize where the hostages could have been taken. And he was right. Also, Mac's doctors have gotten back his preliminary test results.


	18. Chapter 18

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

There are several references to experiences Jack shared with Mac in the military, as well as Cairo – these are from my little collection of Turkey Day stories, titled Turkey Day: All the Trimmings and a larger story called Ground Rules. You don't have to read them, but they will help give context to Jack's thoughts and comments.

-M-

"I'm sorry to interrupt, doctor."

Levi Van Dijk turned in surprise to see Sasha standing in the doorway. It was very unusual for her to interrupt afternoon rounding, and Levi took a second to take in her expression before he politely excused himself from the circle of half-dozen physicians and joined her in the doorjamb.

Sasha Banks kept her voice low. "It's about the VIP STICU patient." Her eyes slipped past him, he presumed at the other likely curious doctors in the conference room, before she reassured herself that she wasn't being overheard. "Dr. Meijer went to communicate a change to the patient's power of attorney, and he's, ah, insisted that the American agents also hear the information."

The hospital administrator suppressed a sigh. "He's the patient's power of attorney, and that is his prerogative. I presume the prognosis is not positive?"

"No, sir, it's . . . complicated."

So complicated patient news was going to be shared for the first time with the patient's family and a room full of US federal agents. That could potentially be a little intimidating for the patient care team . . . but not for a doctor like Ines.

No. Dr. Meijer was definitely going to be the problem here.

"I see," he said quietly, then gestured. "Lead the way."

The grief counselor took him down to the trauma floor, which was still under the same strict security control as before, and Levi was pleased that he didn't hear any raised voices in the main hallway. After speaking with Matilda Webber, he suspected their VIP patient, Luka Morrow, was not actually a journalist, but in fact an American agent himself. That was not information he had shared with the care team, which would definitely put Meijer on the defensive.

And since Luka's power of attorney was not a patient at Academisch, and thus did not have a patient room to call his own, the hospital administrator was unsurprised when Sasha led him past the consultation room to the American director's room instead.

The rooms on the trauma floor were fairly large, to accommodate the equipment that was often used to treat traumatic injury. This room was nearly full, and it was full of people. The patient herself looked like a child in an adult gurney, and seated or standing along the side of her bed were three others. One other patient – who looked as if he shouldn't be walking the floor without a red 'Fall Risk' band – and two non-patients, including Wilt Bozer.

Opposite them stood part of Luka's care team – Dr. Meijer, of course, as well as Dr. Teuling and Dr. Peterson, indicating to Levi that the patient was now exhibiting signs of either sepsis or MODS. He probably should have brushed up on the patient's chart, but he wasn't here to consult.

He was here to keep the peace.

Dr. Teuling clearly had that same intention, because he was the doctor actually speaking when Sasha eased open the door.

"- suffered widespread hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. That means that the entire brain – and his entire body, actually – was deprived of adequate oxygen for at least fifteen minutes. The first responders that treated Luka did everything correctly – they immediately administered pure oxygen and mechanical assistance, and tried to restore a normal sinus rhythm. The helicopter medevac also helped, in that it kept his body cooler. Despite this, his original images showed widespread swelling in the brain, which coupled with his coma, heart failure, and depression of brain stem reflexes, indicated extensive, catastrophic damage."

Hendrik shot them a quick glance as Levi closed the door, but immediately continued.

"We aggressively treated the brain swelling, and compensated for the injury by ventilating the patient and attaching a pacemaker. It typically takes about forty-eight hours before any brain swelling reduces enough to give us clear images of the actual damage. As you know, we're still inside that window, so the images we took earlier are still . . . a little fuzzy."

The neurologist swung a mobile cart around so that the room could see the images he'd pulled up on the computer. "I'll spare you the technical lecture – his brain is in much better shape than we anticipated."

Wilt – and the others beside him – all shifted in surprise. Clearly that wasn't the news they were expecting, and before they could get too hopeful, Henrik continued.

"He did suffer some ischemic damage, but it was much less than expected. Overall these images look like a heart attack victim who received treatment quickly, which is essentially the case with Luka. However," and his tone became more somber, "we were able to locate an area of damage that is far more serious."

Dr. Van Dijk studied the MRI image that Dr. Teuling was displaying. The concentration of white, on the patient's brain stem, was indeed fuzzy due to the tissue swelling – but would definitely explain what he recalled of the patient's symptoms.

"This is Luka's brain stem. It's the . . . stalk of the brain, that connects it to the rest of his body. This brighter area here indicates damage. How badly damaged, we can't tell yet. But we know that his brain is no longer talking to his body. It's possible that while he was in surgery, he threw a blood clot that wound up here."

"A stroke," Director Webber clarified.

"Yes ma'am. It's quite small, the damaged area is roughly the size of a pea. At this point, we can't tell the severity of that damage or the –"

"Wait." It was a masculine voice, full of gravel, and Levi focused on the other patient in the room. Dalton, he thought the man's name was. "Are you tryin' to tell us that a polka dot is killin' him?"

"It's a combination of several things," Henrik answered, before Ines could. "He's also in a type of shock, called neurogenic shock. The knife put pressure on his spinal cord, which may also be contributing to his symptoms."

"So . . . what _are_ you saying?" Wilt, at least, sounded as if he able to comprehend that what he was hearing wasn't positive.

"Luka's prognosis hasn't changed." Dr. Meijer sounded annoyed, not incensed, which spoke to how invested she was in this patient. "We've learned that his overall brain health is much better than initially expected, but it doesn't change the fact that Luka's condition will continue to deteriorate."

"How do you know that?" Dalton challenged. "Doogie Howser over there just said you don't know how bad it is."

"The patient shows almost no detectable signs of neurological activity. He has no reflexes. His body is completely unaware that his brain is there at all. We've started to bring him out of the hypothermia, and he's already showing signs of multiple organ dysfunction. His body's shutting down," she clarified, as she saw Dalton open his mouth to start arguing with her. "There is no amount of support we can provide that replaces an entire human brain."

"So fix it." Dalton said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Meijer's eyebrows twitched. "If I had that power, I would."

"Sounds to me like you don't got much to do." He jabbed a finger at the screen. "If that polka dot's the problem, fix it."

"Jack . . ." There was a warning in Webber's tone, but also a lot of sympathy, and Levi was once again reminded that she'd heavily insinuated that Luka Morrow was an agent. It was quite possible that Dalton was a colleague, perhaps even a close one.

"No. First you tell us that he's a vegetable, and now it turns out that you were wrong about that. You could be wrong about this too! You don't know that kid's brain like we do, an' we're not gonna give up on him!"

"Luka's care team isn't giving up on the patient," Levi broke in smoothly. "This information in no way lessens the urgency with which he is being treated. What the information does tell us is how to further focus his treatment." Dalton's nostrils flared, and Levi tried another tact.

"You must understand, Luka is very, very sick. The typical abatement period for neurogenic shock is two to three weeks. If he's already experiencing organ failure, that means that his blood is slowly becoming toxic. His immune system won't respond to infection. The wounds in his chest and his lung won't heal. These are things we can and will treat, but without Luka's body to help us, and as weak as he already is . . . he will continue to get worse."

"So you're saying that he's still gonna die." Wilt's voice was much quieter than his colleague.

"I'm saying that his odds of survival haven't changed," she corrected, with slightly more patience than she'd addressed Dalton. "In light of this information, we'll tailor his treatment to managing symptoms of MODS and providing his brain stem as much support as we can. But there is no surgical correction for this type of damage."

The room was quiet a moment. "You said . . . not surgical . . ." This came from a young woman, leaning against the wall behind where Dalton was seated. "Is there some other type of correction?"

"You mean, will his brain heal itself?" Levi was glad Hendrik decided to field that question. "Spontaneous healing has occurred in coma patients before, but to my knowledge not in a patient in Luka's condition. We've only just seen the images, and we'll sit down as a team and explore all the options medically available to us."

Dalton opened his mouth, but the patient on the bed made a small gesture with her hand, and he stilled immediately.

"We may be able to help with that," Matilda offered. "The Phoenix Foundation is first and foremost a think tank. We have several contracts with the military and a few private medical research firms. Would you mind sending Luka's test results to my people?"

"We typically insist on second opinions in cases like Luka's," Levi replied, before Ines could undo the less combative atmosphere. "We would be happy to send Luka's results to his personal physician."

That was very likely one and the same, Webber's Foundation and Luka's general provider, but Meijer didn't know that. His statement provided both women a sense of reassurance, because both seemed to accept it.

"What does this mean . . . for him? For Luka?" Wilt asked tentatively. "You said he's probably not in pain, but that was before . . . Is he aware of what's happening to him?"

Henrik hesitated. "That's also hard to say. This doesn't change the fact that he can't feel any pain, at least not from his body. Coma patients sometimes report experiencing an awareness of people speaking, a feeling of floating, but the Hollywood construct of perfectly cogent patients being completely aware of everything happening . . . in order to be conscious, there are two things a human must be able to achieve: wakefulness and awareness. The brainstem is where wakefulness comes from, but awareness happens in the cortico-thalamic network. His is still intact. It's possible that he has some awareness."

Wilt swallowed, as if he meant to ask something else, then just nodded.

"Part of managing Luka's treatment is managing his pain and his emotional state," Ines declared, with a sort of compassion Levi didn't often see from her. "That includes anti-anxiety medication, as long as his kidneys and liver can tolerate it."

"And . . . when they can't?" Wilt's face was clouded with worry. "Earlier, you said that when he . . . he stops responding to tests, that it meant he was braindead. What does that mean now?"

"Nothing's changed," Meijer told him, before Henrik could even get his mouth open. "Without a functioning brainstem, he will never attain consciousness again. In that condition, even if he had awareness of self or needs, he could never communicate or express them to anyone. His organs would continue to fail over a period of days until his heart could no longer handle the strain. Any continued treatment after brain stem death would no longer be beneficial for the patient."

Levi and Ines had had conversations about her bedside manner more than once. He knew that in her mind, she was explaining why this seemingly positive discovery did not improve the patient's prognosis using facts, because facts did not depend on a person's culture, religion, or emotional state. She was explaining why they could not keep Luka alive indefinitely in a way that she knew Wilt would understand. That it wasn't in the patient's best interest, even if part of his brain was still intact.

Still, the stricken look on the young man's face . . . she had to realize he loved Luka like family, despite the clearly different ethnic background.

"Then you better get to work." Dalton stood, more smoothly than Van Dijk would have thought him capable of. "Don't you got some medical records to send?"

Webber pushed herself up higher in her bed. "Where do you think you're going-"

"Matty, if he's got even an inklin' of what's goin' on around him, I ain't leaving him in that room by himself!"

"Dalton, stand down before you fall down." She transferred her glare to the physicians. "If his prognosis is still terminal, I don't see any reason why visiting hours can't be expanded."

"His infection protocol hasn't changed," Dr. Peterson protested. It was the first time Levi had heard Nora speak. "Now that we have a better understanding of his neurological condition, our primary focus will be shifting to his penetrative trauma and treating for sepsis and MODS-"

"Doctor, are they adhering to that protocol?" While the words were polite and phrased as a question, it was clearly rhetorical.

Nora's mouth opened, then she swallowed whatever she was going to say. "To date," Nora admitted instead, a little coldly. "But the risk-"

"The risk is diminished somewhat now that we're lifting the therapeutic hypothermia," Henrik interrupted. "If his brainstem is as completely disconnected as it appears, and he has any awareness, his brain will be craving stimulation. It will take about eight hours before he'll be warmed back up to normal body temperature. I'll work with Mr. Bozer to identify Luka's favorite music, and we'll get that going in his room right away. Once he's back up to a normal temperature, from a neurological perspective, the more we can engage his brain the better."

Meijer didn't contradict Henrik outright. Instead, she looked towards Wilt Bozer, who didn't seem to notice her study. He was staring at the foot of Matilda Webber's bed, worrying the hem of his tee shirt, visibly distressed.

He'd already accepted that there wasn't going to be a last minute miracle. It had finally occurred to him that the most likely outcome would be withdrawal of support, and allowing the underlying causes of Luka's condition to run their course naturally. That as Luka's power of attorney, he would be the one to sign that medical order.

And it was clearly devastating him.

And it finally seemed to sink in for Ines, too, because after observing his behavior a few moments, she turned and gave her colleague a neutral look. "It's your call, Dr. Peterson."

Nora was more aware than anyone in the room of the odds and the progression of any organ dysfunction or infection to date. It was pretty unlikely that Luka wouldn't succumb to the bacteria already inside his body before anything introduced externally could penetrate his body and take hold.

But Levi deeply appreciated her protectiveness of her patient. She, too, looked at Wilt before she made her decision.

"As long as infection protocols are _strictly_ observed, I'll allow it."

-M-

"What do you think?"

"I think you shouldn't be sitting up," Dr. Talbot responded, the tablet making her sound even more disapproving than she probably was. "Keep in mind we have everyone's data, not just MacGyver's."

Matty rolled her eyes at the webcam and adjusted the bed a little. The drains they'd installed for her wounds itched, and she didn't dare look at the little bulbs dangling from the ends of the narrow tubes. Undoubtedly they were full of blood and fluids, which would only encourage the continued badgering from her doctor.

Her actual doctor. Melissa Talbot was her personal physician, as well as being the fairer half of the Drs. Talbot, who oversaw Phoenix medical.

She didn't need Melissa's opinion of her back. She was going to be fine. Sore, but fine. It was the doctor's opinion on Mac that she wanted.

"And do you agree with his diagnosis?"

Dr. Talbot's eyes shifted to something on her right, probably a computer screen. "These images aren't great. There's still too much swelling to get a clear picture of what's going on. But the placement is extremely concerning. And his other symptoms, his latest bloodwork . . ." She gave a quiet sigh. "There's no doubt that he's in the beginning stages of organ failure. And that he's not responding to treatment."

"But what about other options?" Matty pressed.

The doctor frowned. "Dr. Ines Meijer is one of the most well-respected neurologists in the world. If she says this is non-surgical, it is. I absolutely agree with her suspicion that MacGyver's experiencing atypical neurogenic shock. And I think it's so severe because he suffered the trifecta in those first twenty minutes – tanking blood pressure, acute hypoxia, and physical trauma."

She gestured at her other screen, apparently unaware that Matty couldn't see it. "Still, I've never heard of a case of neurogenic shock where the patient's heart failed. I'd expect the paralysis, the onset of MODS, the coma . . . but the total lack of almost all detectable neurological activity, loss of gag reflex, weak corneal reflex . . . everything is pointing to an irreparably damaged brain stem. Everything except this image."

Which was exactly what she didn't want to hear. "Is there some way to . . . work around the damage?"

"It's not a traffic jam, Matilda. The bridge is completely out, and there's only one." Melissa looked up, then, and after a moment her husband, Timothy, appeared in the frame beside her.

"Good . . . evening," he guessed, glancing at his watch. Matty figured it was about six am in LA . "I take it Melissa is giving you the bad news."

"She is," Matty confirmed. "So give me some good news."

A small frown marred his otherwise handsome face. "I'm afraid I don't have much of that. I did turn up something, but Mac won't live long enough to benefit from it."

He gestured to the top corner of the tablet, and Melissa obediently tapped it. A document displayed, a white paper on some kind of research. Matty didn't even try to read it.

"There's been some work done in this arena, specifically around rewiring the medulla oblongata after trauma and injury to the spinal column. They're intentionally triggering Akt/FKHR activation to encourage spontaneous recovery in the subject – at least respiratory recovery."

Matty was no doctor, but she felt like she was getting there fast. "The study was able to make the brain stem heal itself so the injured patient could breathe on their own again?"

Timothy looked impressed. "Less healing and more remodeling of injured neural circuitry, but yes. The lesion would remain, but activity would pass around it through new pathways."

Breathing on his own was currently one of the challenges Mac had. "How is this not good news?"

"Because it's only been done on rats, and it only worked when the trauma was an incomplete spinal cord injury. So it's not a perfect match to Mac's situation, and it's years away from clinical trials." Timothy's voice was somber. "Even in ideal conditions, MacGyver would never survive that long."

He had maybe days, not years. "In your opinion, is it worth exploring?"

Both the Drs. Talbot looked at her like deer caught in headlights. ". . . in a hypothetical country where that was actually legal?"

Matty waved a hand in the air. "I'm not talking about legality. I'm talking about the science."

"I can't answer that," Melissa told her. "The missing years of medical trials would indicate whether it was applicable." She hesitated. "From a purely medical point of view, humans have the same structures in the brain, and stimulation of these structures chemically . . . I can't tell you if it would work, but we could model it and run simulations to find out how harmful it could be."

So approaching the problem from the opposite direction – determining if the attempt might kill Mac.

First, do no harm.

"Run the simulations," she instructed them. "I'll assign you a couple techs."

"Director . . ." Timothy hesitated. "Even if the simulations show promise, there's no way for us to vet that data in the amount of time that we have –"

"Then you'll have to improvise," she told him flatly. "Right now this is all hypothetical. We have no idea if this line of inquiry will pan out. Once you have some data in your hand, then you can worry about the implications. Agreed?"

Reluctant nods were given, and Matty disconnected the call.

Then she closed her eyes, and let her head sink back into the pillow.

There might not be much she could personally do for Mac, but Dalton's furious voice was still ringing in the room, long after the physicians – and Jack himself – had left.

 _What's the fuckin' point of having a think tank if we can't use it to save the guy who built half the shit in it!_

And he was right. The think tank was more than a do-nothing cover. They developed the technology that Phoenix used in their clandestine operations. A significant part of her total operating budget was made up of incredibly smart people who worked to solve problems in innovative ways.

And she was going to use them, and every other resource at her disposal, to give him every chance she could.

Which left another call that needed to be made. And perhaps a plane to be chartered.

Matty forced her eyes open again, lest another nap sneak up on her unawares, and picked up the tablet. Her first order of business was assigning the techs she'd promised the Talbots. Two techs that worked medical, knew their algorithms, and had zero contact with Jill Morgan or anyone even remotely related to this op.

She'd only just finished handing out the assignment when there was a quiet knock on her door, and it opened to reveal a very tall man, this time not in pajamas but slacks and a knit shirt.

Matty gave the deputy director a smile. "Harlan."

He inclined his head. "Director." He gestured to the tablet, and she gave a restricted shake of her head in answer to his unasked question, and laid it flat on her stomach. "Come in."

"Thank you." It was clear he'd been discharged, and just as obvious that he had not been cleared to return to his duties. Probably a twenty-four hour rule after the painkillers he'd had. Like her, there was no question he was still in command of his organization, but the temporary deputy director still technically had the reins.

And like her, he was using that person as a tool to get work done without being bothered.

"I wanted to inform you that you will likely be fielding a call from your State Department." He took a seat near her bed, folding his hands in his lap. "Dutch authorities will not be releasing our suspects into Turkish custody until the Hague has ruled on Batuhan Aydin."

Matty digested that. Clearly the Hague wasn't going to be ruling on whether or not Aydin was guilty of crimes that would result in a sentence of imprisonment – he was dead. But they would still rule on whether his actions constituted war crimes. The answer was still very likely going to be yes. Even allowing for their watering down of the torture 'Luka Morrow' suffered at Aydin's hands, and the breakout and subsequent hostage-taking potentially having occurred without Aydin's knowledge, he'd still overseen or directly ordered the deaths of over eighty people, most of them civilians.

And there was no excusing what he did to Ambassador Chevalier, and more importantly, his wife and young daughter.

Still, if Aydin was not convicted of war crimes, the men operating under his command would be entitled to certain protections under international law. Meaning they would have protections from President Erdogan's wrath. It was clear Harlan believed that if the men were turned over to Turkish authorities, they wouldn't survive to see trials of their own, and even if they did, those trials would be a farce.

"When do you expect that ruling?"

The deputy director gave that some thought, staring out the hospital window. "I wouldn't presume to hurry the judges, and there are still weeks of testimony to hear. I anticipate a ruling is at least two months out."

And by then, the Dutch could press charges of their own against the men for their part in taking the hostages, and the firefights that followed. They would wind up in prison either way, but at least in a Dutch prison they were likely to survive the incarceration.

"The State Department may decide to put in a call to your superiors, if that's the case."

The deputy director's expression turned cool. "They are welcome to do so."

So Wolff had no intention of shifting his position.

Seeing as Mac's next door neighbor had died earlier that afternoon, and Harlan still had several wounded agents on her floor, that was saying something. "I applaud your sense of justice."

"It is just for men to have the opportunity to face their crimes," he replied, his voice curiously flat. "Have you had a chance to review all the footage from the convoy attack?"

Matty stared at him a moment. Those two statements very clearly related to each other in some way. "I've done a preliminary analysis. Did I miss something?"

"I don't know," he replied. "Will you be charging Agent Dalton with murder when he's released from the medical center, or will you wait until after he lands in the United States?"

Matty would have cocked her head if the neck brace would have let her. "I'm sorry, Harlan, I don't think I heard you correctly. In the United States, federal agents that injure or kill suspects in the discharge of their duties –"

"The operation is already being reviewed, by both your superiors and mine," he cut her off, again without much emotion. "The radio traffic and satellite imaging very clearly shows that Hatice Iris was unarmed, with her hands raised, backing away from Agent Dalton when he shot and killed her."

His tone wasn't terribly confrontational. He didn't appear angry, and his intention was not to threaten her. It was partly a warning – had she noticed that particular detail, since her superiors might well. And it was partly to express his disapproval.

He was bringing it up because Jack had broken the law.

Which Matty already knew.

She'd reviewed that footage herself, and come to the same conclusion. Iris had been about to bolt, and there was no way Jack could have stopped her. She was still a clear threat, she'd been literally stating her intention to kill Riley when he'd pulled the trigger.

But he could have shot her in the leg. Or the arm. He could have chosen to wound her, and had they captured Iris alive, they might have gotten intel on the hostages immediately, instead of stumbling onto them because Bozer happened to be reminiscing about Mission City.

Jack had killed Hatice Iris because he knew that if she got away, his family would never be safe. He killed her to save lives.

And in the eyes of the law, that was not an immediate enough threat to justify his actions. Harlan wasn't wrong.

When Matty finally spoke, she kept her tone measured. "I assure you that the recordings will be analyzed as part of the operational debriefing, and any failures on the part of Agent Dalton - or any other agent - will be dealt with in accordance with department policy and all applicable laws."

"Is that so." It was hard to tell exactly what he thought from his tone. "I presume extenuating circumstances will be taken into account."

Matty tried hard not to bristle at the insinuation. Wolff clearly thought she was going to let Jack off the hook because of what he was going through at the time – without understanding that what Dalton was going through at the time was absolutely, unequivocally key to the decisions he'd made that day. Wolff had no idea what those agents meant to Jack, and how much pain he was truly in right now.

"Much like the extenuating circumstances that no doubt drove your decision to delay the routine transfer of suspects back to their home country," she observed mildly. "After all, I'm sure if we asked him, Erdogan would swear on a swimming pool of holy water that those men would receive a fair and unbiased trial."

There was a little flicker of something, then, that crossed Wolff's face. It was almost amused. "That is one of the greatest things about my country, Director. That is why the Hague exists, and it exists here. The rest of the world sometimes forgets the meaning of 'fair and unbiased'."

Which was a fair point – no pun intended. "And I would never dream of sullying that history of fairly metered justice." She was fairly sure he realized that she was talking about him, and not his country. "I know that when my superiors review the information you provide on this joint operation, it will be accurate and presented without bias."

That had to be what he was getting at. Telling her that he was not going to be party to any kind of cover-up related to the op.

And she wasn't asking or expecting him to.

Harlan Wolff was as straight-laced as they came. He had an impressive military background, spoke six languages including Madarin and Arabic, and held a PhD in Criminology. His military focus, prior to being promoted to command, had been computer science forensics. The first time they'd met, he'd swept the Phoenix Foundation's involvement in the Organization's framing plot under the rug because she was able to provide him the guilty parties – namely, the Organization's lackey who had both assembled and planted the bomb, and the evidence he needed to assure himself that the mastermind, Chrysalis – Patricia Thornton – was behind bars.

Previously he had played ball because he got what he needed to assure himself that justice was served.

And in this case, Wolff had scored a major victory in recapturing Aydin and rescuing the hostages. It was all over the news, and one hundred percent of the credit went to Dutch and German law enforcement. Despite the gunfight in the streets of Düsseldorf and the anti-tank rockets on the Autobahn, Wolff and his German counterpart were going to walk away from this unscathed. Their superiors would count the win and overlook the mess.

But Wolff wouldn't.

He was interested in justice. People had died. Some of them were his own men, some were his enemies. Hatice Iris was definitely an enemy. That didn't mean that she didn't deserve to be alive in a cell with the rest of Adyin's men right now.

And Matty understood his absolute determination to adhere to that code, that sense of justice. Leaders of clandestine organizations had an incredible amount of power. If they didn't hold the line, no one would.

That being said, the law had, by design, a certain amount of flexibility. Specifically for situations such as this. To allow for true justice. Harlan was using it to protect Aydin's men from an unjust government and an undeserved death.

He was asking her, in his way, if she was going to use that flexibility to uphold justice, or to let her organization skirt by on 'the ends justifies the means.' And it wasn't just about Iris. There were several mistakes that had been made, potentially starting with MacGyver's decision to go forward with releasing Aydin in order to save Riley.

And justice, in this case, was going to be very hard to pin down.

Wolff was watching her, trying to judge her sincerity. She threw him an olive branch.

"I appreciate your candor, as always. Were there any other operational details you wanted to discuss?"

-M-

"Hey."

"Hey," Jack replied, not taking his eyes off the glass.

In another couple shuffling steps, the younger man joined him – on his bad side – and took in the scene. "Changin' his bandages again?"

"Yeah."

The again part was not a surprise, really, but it wasn't a good sign. There were three of them. Two were propping Mac in the position they wanted him – which was lying on his good side – and the third nurse was in charge of the actual bandages. The outer bandages had appeared generally clean, but as they worked, it became apparent they were heavy with blood and fluids. It had been days – two days? Three?

Mac shouldn't'a still been bleedin' like that. He wasn't healing right.

Maybe he wasn't healing at all.

One of the male nurses held Mac's upper torso steady on his left shoulder, while the other's job was to support his head and neck so the ventilator could still do its thing. He was sure they were talking amongst themselves, but the masks made it impossible to read lips.

He prolly didn't want to hear it anyway. If Mac's eyes had been open, he would have been staring right at them.

They weren't.

"They're thawing him out," Jack volunteered into the silence. "Said the both of us could sit with him, once he warms back up."

"Cool," Bozer replied, then leaned wearily against the wall, letting his head thump onto the glass. After a second, he frowned. "Still damn cold in there."

"You warm up hypothermia victims slowly. If you don't, they can seize." God, everything he'd ever learned about medical came from Delta. And right now none of it was worth a damn.

Wilt didn't reply.

The front bandage came off, revealing a very neat incision, crossed with precise black stitches. Much like Matty now had, there was a drain from the wound, a thin plastic tube that terminated in what looked like the same kinda bulb you squeezed to pump up a blood pressure cuff. Only this one was clear; clearly full of bloody liquid.

Jack honestly wasn't sure if it was from the stab wound, or that was what was coming out of his lung.

"So is this . . . worse than Cairo?"

Jack blinked, never taking his eyes off Mac. Worse than Cairo.

Weapons dealers, poisonous snakes, a burning building, a dirty bomb, a warehouse full of terrorists, a rocket propelled grenade, exposure of strontium –

"Yeah," he said, then brought up his left hand and scrubbed his face. "Yeah, Boze. This is worse than Cairo."

The younger man didn't so much as twitch. "You were s'pposed to say, nah, man, Cairo's way worse." Bozer was obviously too drained to try the Texas drawl, but Jack appreciated the effort just the same.

"Sorry dude. In Cairo, we had no idea what we were gettin' into. This time . . . " He trailed off. "Dammit, I knew leavin' him in that courtroom was the wrong move. I _knew_ it. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he's on the money, but that one . . . that little ol' one . . ."

There was always that blue moon, when Mac was put into a position where he'd never make the hard decision. The decision he _needed_ to make to get himself out alive.

"That's what I'm for, Boze. I'm there for that one percent of the time that he can't do what needs to be done. His heart's too good."

That great big beautiful heart, that couldn't even beat on its own anymore. That needed one of the wires he could see going right into the kid's pale chest.

He hadn't been there. Ethan Darby let him walk out of that courthouse with the colonel, and Jack Dalton had arrived twenty minutes too late.

"You know it took me seventy-eight days to get him to tell me he preferred to be called Mac? Seventy-eight days." Thinking back on it now, it seemed a lifetime ago. "And now here we are callin' him Luka. Like we ain't even talkin' about him. Like it's somebody else."

The nurse finished bathing the wound, and started tearing into new packages of bandages. They couldn't hear even a whisper of the noise.

"He tried to tell me," Bozer mumbled. "About this life. He said on his worst days, he'd almost died alone. I guess this one – this one's –"

Jack gave a humorless snort. "Venezuela." He hadn't thought about that op in years. "God, I thought we'd lost him for sure. I'd gone ahead to the meet, Mac stayed behind to disable the cars. Somebody landed a lucky punch, next thing I know we're standing outside a damn inferno. When they pulled him outta there –"

He'd been a wet noodle. Just like he was now, sagging in the nurses' grasp.

"He was on a ventilator after that op, two days while they worked the poison outta his lungs. Docs credited him for the save, the wet towel he'd tied over his face, hidin' under his jacket." He half smiled. "If I hadn't'a thought he was a wizard before . . ."

But this time there'd been no wet towel. No jacket. He'd been pinned to an empty wall with nine inches of oiled steel. Not even Mac could use that to save himself.

"Was he always just . . . good at this?"

Jack finally turned, and really looked at Wilt. It was impossible for color to drain out of him – it was kinda built in – but he certainly looked drawn. Tired in a way a guy as young as he was had no business looking.

"Nah. When I met him, he was basically bravado and guts." All attitude and confidence in what he knew he could do. "I'd been working for the CIA for close to thirteen years by then. When he finally put that together, he asked me to . . . 'improve his situational awareness'."

That actually got a small smile out of Boze. "Now that sounds _exactly_ like something Mac would say." He picked his head up off the glass to shake it. "And you think he's bad now, when we were kids an' he was focused on somethin', you could literally set his clothes on fire and he wouldn't notice."

Jack snorted. "Not a lot changed, man. Once he was buried in a bomb, you'd practically have to shoot him to get his damn attention." And then there'd been that time in Shahjoy, when the Tallies nearly grabbed him up –

"I wasn't plannin' on bein' around forever back then, y'know? So I showed him the ropes, I knew he'd have to learn to take care of himself someday."

They both watched the nurses carefully lay a freshly rebandaged Mac gently onto his back. There was a little fussing, and watching the monitors, but then they started to clean things up.

"Mac's been takin' care of himself since he was ten," Wilt said softly. "He's not in there because he didn't know what was gonna happen to him." Only Wilt's eyes moved, tracking the nurses as they finished tidying the mess. "He made a choice to be there."

He'd known. He'd done the math and made his predictions.

"That was the one thing I could never teach him, man." The nurses retreated to the opposite side of the room and started peeling off all the infection protection gear, and Jack straightened, as best he could, and tried to ignore the pain.

Wilt gave him a quizzical look. "You couldn't teach him what?"

"That his life is as valuable as everybody else's," Jack answered simply.

-M-

Hey look! I might actually be on a schedule with these things.

In summary – Mac's brain is in better shape than anyone dared hope, but it doesn't change the fact that he's dying. Matty is going to do what she can to protect her agents – and right now it looks like she has to protect at least three of them from themselves. Bozer and Jack have a conversation about Mac.


	19. Chapter 19

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

Quick Note: Several of you asked about my background in medicine. I have a Master's in Google. It's as accurate as I can make it, but I am in no way, shape, or form a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. Just like the MacGyvering, the military jargon, and the European geography, I'm doing the best I can to be true to the content, and I'm glad that it's good enough that it's still sucking you guys in.

-M-

It was quiet.

That was the thing that struck her about the floor. How quiet it was. The op was over, so the lounge wasn't bustling with analysts and the muted sound of chatter anymore. They'd packed up and left as soon as the hostages had been counted – and every single one of them had been accounted for. After that, there was no reason to work out of their makeshift office in the Academic Medical Center. No reason to stick close to their deputy director.

They'd moved on to cleanup, combing the country for any of Aydin's men who might have slipped away. The only evidence that Dutch intelligence had ever been here was the guard at the end of the hallway, still keeping to the strict security protocols. Just in case anyone came to get revenge.

There was only one person on the floor they could be coming for. Agent Jannsen had died, earlier in the day. The only one up there now was Mac.

He was quiet too.

She knew the heart monitor had to be beeping, but she couldn't hear it. She could see his chest move, every so often, but there was no associated hiss of air moving. The rooms were pretty well soundproofed.

Which probably meant he couldn't hear her, either. Which was okay, because she'd just added a few tunes to the playlist Boze had created. He'd stuck to classic rock and old favorites, which if she'd been trapped in a bed would have driven her out of her damn mind. Now Mac was listening to a few choice tracks from Moby and Oakenfold.

Trance was what she liked to listen to when she was chilling. Gradual build-ups, some vocals here and there, and melodies that always took her back to whatever movie or club where she'd first heard it.

It was going to be a long time before she'd think of anything but that fucking ship the next time she heard a car honk – dog bark combo. Or a call to prayer.

"Just gonna stare at him?"

Riley physically jumped away from the wall, and a large shadow on her right raised his hands placatingly.

"Jesus, Davis. Have another Red Bull." John Tunne was only a few feet away, his socked feet not making a sound on the tile floor.

Once she managed to swallow her heart back into her chest, Riley gave the six foot plus Green Beret a dark look. "You enjoyed that."

He grinned. "Hell yes I did," he admitted. "I'm bored."

The lights had been dimmed in the hallway as a nod to the hour – which was quite late at night, or maybe even quite early the following morning. But there was still enough for her to see the sheen of whatever ointment was smeared over his face and neck, and that one of his eyes was still swollen nearly shut. She winced on his behalf.

"How do you feel?"

He gave her a blank look. "I just told you."

Bored. Hah hah. "Yeah, well, thanks for making sure I won't be falling asleep anytime soon."

The blank look transformed into something a little more knowing. "No problem."

Riley refocused on the window, wrapping her arms around her chest to try to get her heartrate back under control. "Isn't there a . . . poker tournament or something you could be watching right now?"

"Nope," he replied, and mirrored her position, also looking into Mac's room. His voice still sounded terrible, and she recalled that his throat had gotten burned, too, from the superheated air. "Si finally crapped out in the recliner and there's no way in hell I can get back in there without wakin' him up. Ears like a damn fox."

It was the best news she'd heard all night. " _Finally_."

Tunne chuckled, low in his chest. "Si been stalkin' ya?" She didn't answer him, but apparently she didn't need to. "Yeah, the guy's worse than my nanna."

There was just something so incongruous about that word rolling so easily off John's tongue, and Riley blatantly looked him up and down. "You. . . you have a _nanna_?"

"Damn right I have a nanna." There wasn't a trace of sarcasm in his voice. "I'd call her the Queen Mother if she told me to. Don't mess with grey-haired ladies."

Riley couldn't help a snort. "Aydin's guys would probably agree with you right about now." Considering the four of them got spanked by a building full of old people.

"Fuck Aydin's guys." That seemed to be more for the person he was staring at through the glass than for her. "But I know what you mean. About my partner," he clarified. "Once Saito decides you're one of his people, it's smother central."

That . . . was almost _exactly_ what it felt like. Not creepy, not threatening . . . just . . . overly concerned. "Lucky me," Riley muttered.

She knew it sounded ungrateful when Tunne shifted a little beside her. But he didn't sound angry when he spoke. "Listen. After the villa, working with you for weeks, and now this . . . trust me. You got yourself a new big brother, whether you wanted one or not."

Then he seemed to realize whose room in the ICU they were standing in front of. And what was going to happen to the occupant. She heard Tunne sigh, then run a hand through his short-cropped hair. "Ah, hell, I don't mean it like that-"

Riley just shook her head. "Mac's not my big brother," she told him flatly. If he was, he'd have fucking known better. "You wanna know the first thing he said about me, to Thornton? He said 'you know how this works, I use the tools around me, this woman just happens to be the one I need to succeed in this mission'."

John seemed a little taken aback by her tone. "Ri . . . you know damn well you stopped being just a tool to Mac a long time ago. Besides," and he rapped the glass with a knuckle, "that kid fuckin' _loves_ his tools, and takes good care of 'em. You're not just some gadget that he grabs off the shelf when he needs it."

She couldn't suppress a snort. "Oh really? Because after he decided I was busted he tossed me over the side of a ship."

John did turn towards her, then, and Riley barely stopped herself from flinching. She covered it with an irritated shake of her head.

If John caught it, he let it go. "One, that kid'd never litter. It's disrespectful to the environment, and the object you're trashing. Second, he never trashes anything. Sounds to me like he repurposed you, and there's a crew full of folks who are alive because of it."

"Yeah, well. He's not," she snapped in reply, and turned back to the glass.

 _He's not._

There was a room full of monitors that said he was, but she just had to take one look to know that wasn't true. Screw his medical records, screw what the doctors had said earlier in the day. He was lying there way the fuck too still.

Too quiet.

Beside her, Tunne blew out his cheeks. "Yeah," he agreed softly.

He didn't say anything else.

Initially she was grateful, because the longer she stood there, the more angry she got. Every single god-damned one of them thought Mac had made the right decision. Saito. Tunne. Bozer.

Jack.

Every single one of them.

But then the quiet stretched on, and it started to bother her a little. John didn't move, didn't say a word. Just stood beside her with his arms crossed, watching Mac.

Which was _not_ like everyone else.

And if he had something to say, he needed to come out and fucking say it.

Finally she couldn't take it. "What, no lecture? No 'it's not your fault', no 'no one blames you'?"

The man beside her sighed lightly. "I know we're each other's spittin' image," he finally drawled sarcastically, "but me and Si are two different dudes, and this ain't my wheelhouse. He and I are partners, and for us that's cut and dry. Kinda like Mac and Jack. It's Jack's job to keep Mac in one piece while Mac does what Mac does. If the kid takes damage, no matter what kind, no matter where from, it's Jack's fault. All there is to it." He shrugged, like it was a done deal. "You and Mac? That's not how you two operate."

"Okay, first, Mac and Jack are not partners. They're . . ." She struggled to find the right comparison. "Two pieces of the same super weird organism that doesn't seem like it should exist but does. And him and Boze are bros. I'm . . . I don't even know," she finished lamely.

Apparently not an agent, or an equal, at any rate.

"Like I said. Not cut and dry. That's why you're so pissed off."

Riley gave him a dirty look.

He offered her another shrug in reply. "Every last one of the serious fights Si and I have had have been about taking unnecessary risks. Mac took you out of the game before that sprain of yours got any worse. Then he took a hit. And maybe that _is_ because you weren't there. Maybe you could have stopped it."

It was exactly what she'd spent the last three days thinking, which is why it surprised her when the words stole all the air out of her lungs. Somehow when it was someone else's voice saying it, it seemed so much more –

Real.

"You're right," she managed, after a moment. "This isn't your wheelhouse."

He smirked a little, but it faded fast. "You'll never know. He'll never know. That's how this life goes. You're pissed off because he's scaring you, and you don't like to be scared. I definitely prefer to be pissed off," he added with a nod. "But while I'm being pissed off, the world's still turning, and Si still needs a partner. I prefer being his partner to being pissed off, so I beat the shit out of him in the sparring ring until _I_ feel better and _he_ realizes he screwed up, and then we're partners again."

Riley blinked. "That's . . . exactly the kind of advice I'd expect from you." Simple bro mentality. No frills. No deeper analysis.

And spot on.

"I'll be here all week."

Despite herself, Riley laughed a little. "Yeah. I guess we will be."

"Not all of us." John nodded to the glass – or rather, the person lying in the bed beyond it. "You can't exactly go beat the shit out of him, but you obviously like being his teammate more than you like being pissed off. You don't got much longer to do the first one, and you have the rest of your life to do the second. Just keep that in mind."

As quiet as he was – and as hard as it was to even _think_ about going in there – it wasn't going to be long before she wouldn't have to worry about it anymore, and that decision was going to be made for her.

Then again, if Bozer was right, and Mac had had his hand in the rescue of those passengers, then the asshole was probably standing right there next to her, looking through that window with them.

In which case he already knew exactly how she felt. So there was no reason to go in there and tell him.

John didn't seem to have anything else to say, and Riley almost let it go. Almost.

"You're more like Saito than you'd like to think."

They went about it very differently, but they'd basically told her the same thing.

John made a face. "Dammit, Riley, I used to like you."

-M-

It took them twenty-seven hours.

Twenty-seven hours after she gave them their orders, the Drs. Talbot returned their completed analysis. Matty received it at nearly the same time as Bozer's text.

 _Mac just failed his corneal reflex test._

It took her another fourteen minutes to make her decision. Then she picked up her phone, and texted Oversight.

Things moved rather quickly after that.

Roughly two hours after she forwarded the information to the hospital administrator, Matty Webber once more found herself holding court in her hospital room. She would have preferred to be standing, but the neck brace – and to a lesser extent, her concussion – made it impossible to look up at people, so she settled for propping herself up higher than was truly comfortable so that she had some hope of maintaining the eye contact that would be necessary to make this work.

Only the hospital administrator made that easier, by sitting. Everyone else was on their feet, including the one woman Webber needed to actually convince. If the circumstances had been anything else, Matilda would have offered her a job then and there.

Dr. Ines Meijer was no one's fool, and she wasn't buying a word of it.

"I understand your confusion." Matilda was addressing Van Dijk, simply because it was easier on her neck. "I'm aware that the published research in this area is several years behind, and I wish that I could share the rest of the data with Luka's care team. However, both the research and the drug are proprietary information, and I am not authorized to disclose it to you."

"There is nothing to disclose," Meijer growled, tossing the thin sheaf of papers carelessly onto the mobile cart's keyboard tray. "Levi, this is akt/FKHR activation. It is still in experimental stages, two years from clinical trials."

Matty knew for a fact that there was no mention of that in the document her analysts had put together, complete with the almost wholly hidden Merck watermark. They'd done their best to make it seem as though someone had gone to a lot of trouble to de-brand confidential research, and Meijer had clearly noticed.

And just as clearly wasn't biting.

Her resident rescued the document from the keyboard, though Matty didn't think for a second that he hadn't already read the electronic version. Meijer had let him – a Dr. Henrik Teuling – speak for her earlier. She wouldn't do that unless he was a trusted subordinate, and she wouldn't have withheld this from him.

There were several doctors she'd never seen before, also in the room, and they seemed comfortable letting Meijer rule the roost. Opposite them, Mac's team was spread out along the wall. Jack had gotten some sleep, _finally_ , and no longer looked like he was about to pass out at any moment. He still didn't look healthy, but Bozer had replaced him as the agent she was most concerned about.

And Riley was still holding herself at a slight distance from all of them. She hadn't had much chance to speak with her youngest agent, and it was becoming apparent that she needed to.

"I don't know all the details," Matty lied smoothly. "Even if I did, I'm not in a position to share them. I could probably convince my contact to pass along . . . anonymized research, if that would help your team's assessment?"

Van Dijk glanced at the care team, most of whom were referring to the document rather than looking at him. "Of course we appreciate you reaching out to your contacts on behalf of the patient. And . . . given the unusual situation, I'm sure _you_ can understand why we cannot simply accept an unpublished and incomplete white paper outlining a highly selective and unpublicized clinical trial. If the physician overseeing this clinical trial could provide at least the base data-"

"That's not necessary," Dr. Meijer cut in coldly. "Clinical data from unverifiable sources is worthless. There's no decision here for us to make."

Matilda finally gave Meijer her full attention. "I assure you, I've provided this information in good faith –"

"You misunderstand, director," Ines spoke right over her. "I said it's not our decision." Behind her, her resident opened his mouth, only to have her effortlessly cut him off, as well. "It's his."

She wasn't looking at Van Dijk. Or Teuling. She was looking at Bozer.

Wilt had been watching the verbal tennis match fairly passively, and when he realized everyone in the room was looking at him, he blinked, and visibly tried to re-engage himself in the conversation.

"Uh . . what?" he stammered hesitantly.

"This is your decision," Meijer repeated impatiently. "You have power of attorney for the patient."

Bozer stared at the doctor blankly, and Matty once again questioned whether she'd made the right choice.

The white paper was just as worthless as Meijer thought it was. In twenty-seven hours, all the Drs. Talbot had managed to determine was that it was unlikely that the treatment would do any more damage than had already been done.

Unlikely. Not impossible.

There were risks associated with administering the drug, as it had to be delivered directly to his brainstem. And they couldn't even hazard a guess as to whether it would be effective. Or what 'effective' even looked like. If they only gave Mac back the basics, the ability to keep his own heart beating, his own lungs moving, his organs functioning, but nothing else –

Then this was the wrong decision. Because a MacGyver in that condition, alive and stable but unable to communicate, was worse than dead.

She'd let Melissa and Timothy break it down for the team over webcam about an hour ago. Since then, Bozer had been withdrawn, wrestling with the very question he was being asked now.

Ultimately, it didn't matter what any of them thought. Not the Talbots, not Mac's doctors, not the team, and not her. This decision was Mac's, and Mac had entrusted it with Bozer, to make it when he couldn't.

"And also the moral authority," Meijer added. "You are the only person here that I trust to do the right thing for the patient."

What she hadn't said rang louder than what she had.

Bozer looked at her, then at the floor. One by one, he checked in with his team. Jack gave him a nod – clearly he was on board. Riley offered a tight smile – not approval, just support. Then Bozer looked at Matty herself.

"What they want doesn't matter," Ines snapped. "This is about Luka, and what _he_ wants."

Matty softened her expression, trying to silently let Bozer know that whatever his decision, she would have his back.

Wilt swallowed hard, then looked back towards the care team. Checking in with them, almost exactly like he had with Jack and Riley. Their expressions were far more schooled, sympathetic but not indicative of any kind of support or opinion.

When he finally spoke, his voice was slow and thick. "Ma . . . my friend Luka, all he cares about is helping people. It's all he's ever cared about. If I understand all this . . . it's an experimental drug. It might not help him at all. It might even hurt him." He looked back at Dr. Meijer for confirmation, but she didn't move.

"Right now, as he is . . . he can't help anyone. Maybe it's a wonder drug, and he'll be cured. But even if it isn't, if it hurts him or even kills him, or does nothing at all, I think he'd still choose that for himself. Because it lets him keep helping people, by giving you data and research you can use to help the next person."

"I see," Dr. Meijer replied, her tone still cold. "So if this drug stabilizes him, traps him alive and aware in his body, but unable to speak, or to gesture, to see or to feel . . . if he spends the next month or year or decade like that . . . you think he would choose that for himself?"

To Matty's left, Jack let out a growl. "You don't want to help him, that's fine, how's about you get outta the way-"

"Jack," Matty warned sharply, and followed it with a glare that he returned tenfold.

Wilt didn't even notice. He maintained eye contact with Dr. Meijer, more strongly than the rest of his posture would have indicated. "I don't want that for him. But he'd . . . he'd take the risk. He wouldn't even hesitate," Wilt added softly. "He'd be the one tellin' _us_ it was gonna be okay."

It was Bozer, far more than her, that shut Jack up and kept him quiet. No one in the room said anything, they all just looked between Dr. Meijer and Bozer, letting his words soak into the silence.

The doctor blinked first.

"Vey well," she said, and Matty thought she detected a faint trace of approval in her tone. When the doctor's eyes cut to her, however, it was gone. "Send what you can. If my team finds no clinical errors in the data, we'll allow the drug to be administered."

Dr. Van Dijk balked. "I think what Dr. Meijer means is-"

"I mean that the physician leading this farce of a clinical trial will be permitted to administer his or her drug to the patient while that patient is still under my care." Her tone was like ice. "I see no reason to discharge Luka Morrow only to re-admit him the same day. However, no member of _this_ care team is going to experiment on a living human patient as if he is a research rodent."

Then she focused back on Bozer. "That being said, we will do everything in our power to ensure that this treatment does Luka no harm."

Bozer managed to nod. ". . . thank you."

Then Dr. Meijer turned and marched out of the room.

Her departure acted as a signal; the other doctors took their cue and filed out, speaking softly to one another in Dutch. The hospital administrator was wearing an expression of resignation, which Matty had seen in the mirror too many times to count. Having a rock star on staff meant that sometimes policy that was unbreakable was going to have to be broken, and it was up to him to find a way to make it work.

Academisch Medical Center's lawyers were going to eat him alive, but his chief of neurology had spoken, and he was going to do the right thing.

Matty gave him a sympathetic look. "Thank you," she told him sincerely. "I'll have all the data I can forwarded directly to Dr. Meijer and the rest of Luka's care team. I'll also notify the physician that Luka Morrow is now part of the clinical trial."

Dr. Van Dijk gave her a wry look. "Please remember that you too are a patient here, and you are supposed to be resting." He then transferred his look to Jack, who was holding up the wall to her left. "As for you, Mr. Dalton, I've reviewed your most recent test results. If you don't begin to take your treatment seriously, you're going to be upstairs in the STICU with your friend – in your own bed down the hall."

Jack glared at the administer, but didn't offer any lip, and Van Dijk dipped his head and followed the last of Mac's care team out of the door, closing it gently behind him.

"Riley –"

"Already on it," she confirmed, smartphone in hand.

"Put a thirty minute delay on the email. I don't want to tip them off," she added, when Jack opened his mouth to protest. "Melissa already identified a physician in Paris who owes us a favor. He'll be doing the procedure. Get him on the next plane to Amsterdam."

Delaying the data made it look like she'd legitimately had to ask someone else for it, but there was no reason to add even a minute to the time between now and when the drug could be given to Mac. He'd slipped as far as he possibly could – he had only one detectable reflex left, the brain's most basic. Once that was gone –

As if he was reading her mind, Bozer bit his lower lip. "I'm gonna go give Mac an update." He didn't wait for permission, looping around the foot of her bed, and Jack painfully pushed himself off the wall to follow.

"Jack, a word."

Riley glanced up as Jack reluctantly lumbered to a halt, then looked between the two of them before her eyebrows twitched. "I'll, uh, get that plane ticket booked," she muttered, and Bozer held the door open for her.

Jack didn't turn around, he just watched the door close. "Matty –"

"Are you alright?"

She already knew the answer. It was more to find out whether he did.

His shoulders drooped, just a little, and his left arm came up to cradle his sling.

" . . . no." It was quiet, but not without fight. ". . . and I'm sorry. About yesterday."

The shouting.

"If yelling at me hurt my feelings, Jack, you'd have been fired years ago."

He turned, a little – probably because it was just as painful on his collarbone as it was on her neck to turn it – and gave her a lopsided half-smile. "I know you're doing everything you can, Matty. I just . . ." He trailed off helplessly.

Matty sighed, then gestured at the chair. "I need to ask you something."

He didn't look happy about it, but he took the seat, and too late she realized he was probably standing because getting up out of a chair hurt more than the relief sitting in it was worth.

Damn, they were a pair.

"Hit me, coach," he ground out, wincing as he laid his right elbow gingerly on the armrest.

Matty resettled herself on the bed, so that she was laying on her side facing him. "I need you to go back to your room and take your damn meds."

She watched his options skitter across his face like a slot machine. He settled on humor.

"You been waiting a long time to say that, huh."

"We both know if I wanted you on antipsychotics, I'd put them in your bourbon." Which honestly sounded amazing right now, and she was normally a scotch girl through and through. "Jack, if you don't take care of yourself, you'll be no good to Mac."

He heaved a restricted sigh. ". . . I know it's a longshot," he said, then swallowed. "I know I shouldn't get my hopes up. I know it's bad. But . . . I'm not ready to lose him, Matty. I can't do that. I just can't-"

"Hey," she broke in gently. "You haven't lost him, Jack. Not yet. But you and I both know . . . this is the hail Mary to end all hail Maries. The odds are not with him. And if Mac could speak, you _know_ what he'd be telling you right now."

Jack pressed his lips together tightly, and visibly struggled to keep it together. When he finally spoke, his voice only cracked once. "But he can't, Matty. He can't. That's –"

"Aydin's fault," she cut him off sharply. "That's Aydin's fault, Jack. And you know that. You did _everything_ you could. Even things you shouldn't have."

His eyes shot back up to hers, startled, and Matty took a measured breath. "And so did I," she admitted. Fortunately, hers had been masked by the crash and subsequent cockpit fire. As for Jack, knowing what she knew now about his injuries, that kill shot could be explained away as bad luck. It was frankly nothing short of a miracle he'd hit that hacker at all, with the laceration in his shooting arm and the broken collarbone.

And despite Harlan's warning, any possible sanctions against Jack weren't her top concern at the moment. If Jack wanted to stay, she could probably make the case. Right now, that was a big if.

"Matty . . ." His voice was still unsteady, but now for an entirely different reason. ". . . you're okay . . . aren't you?"

Trust him to misunderstand. "I'm fine, Jack," she told him, with a bracing smile. "I might be a little out of practice, but I can still take a hit."

He didn't look convinced. "I . . . shit, Matty, I shoulda been in here more-"

"No," she corrected him quietly. "No, Jack. You did good."

He hesitated. ". . . I really thought you'd bought the farm this time," he told her, his voice unusually gentle. "There's not many people who can bail outta a bird like that and walk away."

"Or an SUV?" she asked him, with a coy little smile. It did little to take the pain out of his eyes. "Trust me, Jack. You've made it up to me." When she felt her own smile go unsteady, she went ahead and let it. "You were right where I needed you."

This time it had been a sunny day, not a snowy night. But funny, flying through the air had felt exactly the same. She didn't remember landing either time. All she really remembered in Chechnya had been opening her eyes, and not being able to breathe. Not knowing who was touching her. Not having time to pull herself together before she was being moved, being handled like a helpless little child.

Remembering only the sounds of glass and noise and gunshots, and being thrown against a car by man five times her size. Not knowing if her agents were alive or dead. Not seeing one familiar face.

Whatever they fed the scumbags in Chechnya, they clearly also fed the scumbags in Turkey.

A warm hand took hers, and Matty pulled herself out of her memories, and squeezed it back. Jack gave her a watery smile, then laughed a little when he couldn't keep them in, and the tears escaped. "I'd already let him down . . . no point in lettin' you down too."

"You didn't let him down, Jack." She gripped his hand, hard, willing the words to soothe the hurt in those big brown eyes. "He was counting on you to come through for him, and you did. Riley, the civilians, Phoenix . . . we're all still standing. He put all the things that are most important to him in your hands, and you took care of it."

Jack bowed his head a little, his smile becoming a grimace, and Matty held his hand tightly. Just like he had held hers, when she'd needed him, until he calmed down a little.

"It's going to take a couple hours to get the physician here from Paris. And then another hour for the procedure. After that it's anyone's guess. Spending that time punishing yourself is not helping Mac. So go back to your room and let them treat you. I _promise_ that I will come and get you when the procedure is finished, and that I will wake you if you're sleeping." She was reasonably sure she was even being truthful.

He nodded a little, but made no move to get up.

She gave his hand one more squeeze, then returned it to him. "Now move it."

-M-

It was the second strangest day Dr. Jean-Noel Leandres had ever experienced.

One moment he was strolling along the river walk to his practice, enjoying a freshly baked croissant, and the next his phone was buzzing. All his appointments, cancelled. His receptionist's thank you text for the surprise paid day off. An untitled email containing nothing more than a sizable attachment.

Then the call. The voice on the other end, explaining in painstaking detail that his services were required in the Netherlands, and refusal was not an option. The taxi that picked him up right off the walk, like the driver had known precisely where he was going to be. Greeted at the door of the Paris Orly Airport like royalty, and spirited off to a charted jet. The one hour flight, all the time he had to acquaint himself with the procedure. The clinical trial that _he_ was apparently leading. All the hospitals where he'd done this procedure before.

The limousine that was waiting for him at the hangar in Amsterdam. The second call, telling him what he should expect.

But what he really should have expected, was that _he_ was involved.

At first he didn't notice. He was so discomfited with the speed at which everything was happening. Nothing felt normal until he stepped out of the limousine onto the steps of Academisch Medisch Centrum, and found himself walking into the hospital. Then everything started slotting into place.

He was greeted by the hospital administrator, who took him not to the suite of their VIP patient, but to his office, to sign all the paperwork associated with allowing an unaffiliated physician to practice in their facility. The normalcy of those documents was like a soothing balm. Jean-Noel was fairly evasive about the nature of the clinical trial, since he had very little information himself, but for some reason the administrator didn't seem surprised.

While they were taking care of the documentation, his equipment arrived, and Jean-Noel found himself impressed. Whoever had set it up had even remembered that he was left-handed. Everything seemed to be in order. He met the surgical team, and shook hands with the anesthesiologist. Everyone was polite but a bit stand-offish, and frankly, if someone had suddenly plunked a strange physician in _his_ practice with only sketchy information about a clinical trial, he would feel the same. Still, it wasn't until he was scrubbing in that he finally started to relax, and to focus.

No matter the method by which he had found himself in this hospital, in the theater a patient was waiting for him. The fact that the patient could pull these kinds of strings didn't matter. A life was still a life, and whoever the patient was, he was clearly in desperate need of help.

And the procedure itself was so challenging. The patient was already prepped, and since he was ventilated they'd needed extra equipment to get him properly secured to the operating table. Their imaging suite was first rate, and Jean-Noel appreciated the extra resolution as he carefully guided the catheter up the anterior spinal artery towards the patient's medulla oblongata.

On camera, the damage looked deceptively small. Just a little discoloration, and a small bulge where he would have expected to see clearly defined pyramid structures. Each of the consumed pyramid structures controlled a separate autonomous activity of the brain. Breathing. Vomiting. Blood pressure. But they weren't completely enveloped by the swelling, which he would have expected, given what he'd seen of the patient's record. When he leaned up, to ease his cramping shoulder muscles, he found another physician – not part of the surgical team – watching literally over his shoulder.

He blinked at the doctor, guessing she was female due to a small amount of eye makeup visible behind her surgical goggles. Her gloved hands were clasped behind her back, clearly signaling that she was in no way involved in the procedure.

She didn't say anything to him. Her eyes remained glued on the monitors.

"Is there . . . a problem, doctor?" he inquired lightly, in English because he did not speak Dutch.

The doctor's eyes flicked from the screen to him, for barely a second, then back at the screen. "No, doctor," and his guess was right; it was definitely a female voice, and though her accent was Dutch, her English was good. "This is the first clear look we've gotten at the patient's medulla."

Given the questionable quality of the MRIs he'd seen, even with the tractography, he believed it. The infection protocols in place for the patient would have prohibited _any_ type of exploratory surgery. Everything that had been done for this patient, from a neurological point of view, at least, had been external only.

"Yes. It's fascinating. I expected more visible damage."

"So did I," she replied after a beat.

And that was all she said.

Jean-Noel rolled his shoulders a few times, working out the kinks, then leaned back in, and was almost surprised when the observing doctor actually gave him the space he needed without prompting. Just as the procedure indicated – the procedure he'd supposedly written – he bathed the entire exterior of the medulla in the provided solution. Removing the catheter was a process that took almost as much time as placing it, and Jean-Noel was actually grateful that the surgical team immediately took over when he'd finished, cauterizing the artery and closing up.

Despite his part of the procedure being complete, he stayed until they finished, and confirmed that the patient's vitals were still stable. Stable, in this patient's condition, wasn't actually all that stable, but anything that happened around that section of the brain stem could have catastrophic and cascading effects on the body. Even introducing fluids, as conservatively as he had, could change pressure or cause unexpected side effects.

In this case, the patient didn't seem to have any type of response, either positive or negative. It was only when they rotated the table to perform a caloric reflex test that he finally saw the patient's face.

His blond hair was hidden behind a surgical cap for the procedure, and the ventilation tubes distorted his jaw and mouth somewhat, but Jean-Noel recognized him instantly. And then everything that had happened, since his pocket had started vibrating next to the river Seine, suddenly made absolute sense.

Jean-Noel almost held his breath as the test was administered, to the patient's right ear, and after an agonizing dozen seconds, his unfocused, fixedly dilated eye rolled ever so slightly to the right.

A nurse came forward, wisping the cotton on the end of a long sterile swab, and she brushed the wisp against the patient's cornea.

There was no response.

Panic gripped Jean-Noel's heart. "Was he exhibiting a corneal reflex prior to the procedure?"

It was the observing doctor that answered him. "No." It sounded slightly contemptuous. "How is it that you were unaware of that, doctor?"

He blinked at her, completely nonplussed. Had he known whose brain he'd been poking around in - "I-I don't know. I had patient data from earlier today. When –"

"He failed his first test five hours ago." She seemed willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Your technique isn't bad, Doctor . . .?"

Jean-Noel very carefully did not offer her a blood-spotted glove – his hands were suddenly shaking too badly. "Doctor Jean-Noel Leandres. Are you his attending?"

She studied him a moment. "Yes," she finally said, and behind her, one of the nurses ducked his head.

Considering how strange his own involvement with the procedure had been, Jean-Noel decided that prying was likely not in his best interest. "Please take good care of him." He glanced back at the operating table, where the patient was being prepped for his transport gurney. "He's a remarkable young man."

"You know the patient?" Finally, there was a flicker of curiosity in her otherwise dry voice.

Jean-Noel found himself smiling behind his mask, even while his knees were turning into jelly. "Yes. Two years ago he saved my life." Using a bag of frozen peas and a ceiling fan. Though that was hardly the most germane detail. "Mr. MacGyver is one of the most brilliant men I've ever met. Inside and out."

-M-

So things actually happened in this chapter! Mostly because my outline kind of got away from me and suddenly there's a lot of stuff that has to happen in the hospital, but _not_ a lot of stuff happening anywhere else. Hence the time jump.

I realize Jean-Noel, the frozen peas, and the ceiling fan never happened, so I will have to go back when this is all over and write another Trimming.

To recap: Riley is still having a hard time reconciling her situation. Bozer had to make a hard decision – with potentially huge ramifications – on Mac's behalf. We learned a little about Chechnya. And we got to see how it looks from an outsider's perspective when the Phoenix Foundation calls in a chip you owe them.


	20. Chapter 20

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

"You keep this up, and we're gonna hafta get better chairs in here."

Mac neither agreed nor disagreed, and Jack cast a look around the room as he settled his sore body onto the stool. Despite the fact that his partner had actually gained a brand new piece of equipment to go with the sizable collection he already had, there was still plenty of space.

"And a liquor cabinet," he grumbled. "I know beer's your poison, but considerin' they're filterin' your blood for ya these days, pretty sure that means you get all the bennies of a buzz without that pesky hangover later."

Mac gave a long-suffering sigh with the help of the ventilator, and Jack couldn't help a fond smile.

"Dude, you are about the only guy I know who can be in a coma, and still be a smartass."

Jack shifted again, trying to find a comfortable way to sit that didn't press on any of his ribs. The compression shirt was helping – the only reason he knew was that he'd skipped them on occasion and lived to regret it – but even after meds and a nap he was still hurting.

"You're goin' on hour four, in case you didn't notice," Jack reminded him quietly. "It'd be real nice if you'd open up those baby blues and let us know you're still in there."

Nothing happened.

"Well . . . you'll be pleased to know that yours truly is in the doghouse – _again_. I, uh . . . I mighta screwed up a little." Jack chewed a piece of dry skin off his bottom lip. "Matty didn't come right out and say it, but that's prolly because I – I finally did right by her. Somehow this time . . . it was the easiest damn thing in the world."

Of course, Mac had zero context to understand what he was saying. And not for lack of his partner asking.

Jack grinned at him. "So if you're just gonna lie there and pretend you can't hear me, I might as well tell ya what happened. Between me and Matty. What _really_ happened, I mean." If anything was gonna get that kid out of his head and back in the world, it would be this.

"Picture this. Beautiful night, right before Christmas, just south of Grozny." He paused expectantly, and Mac eventually sighed. "Yeah. I know. Pretty much every place in Chechnya is south of Grozny. And by beautiful night, I mean fuckin' freeze your ass off in shin-deep snow. The loud squeaky kind, so you can't even walk quiet through it."

Not that they'd been walking. Much. "I got called in from an op right here in River City. Remember Bryce Villanova? Well, Matty's the reason I bailed on Genevieve. The first time, anyway – but I digress." He cleared his throat. "So I get called in, and who should be in the surveillance van but Matilda Webber. Asked for me personally. I think mostly because she remembered how much I bitched about the heat in South America and she wanted to see if I'd bitch about the cold in Chechnya. Which I did, thank you very much."

What was so damn hard about upper seventies and sunny? He was never gonna find a decent place to retire. Never. It was either stay in Cali and get his own personal helo, or head to Florida with the old fogies.

"Turns out she'd tracked down an old friend of ours. Colin Grier. You remember him. Informant who'd double-crossed us and gotten a lot of agents killed? Only he wasn't the headline. He was just the middle man between the gun runner and the guy with the bank."

God, just thinking about that night pissed him off. If they'd gotten Grier in Chechnya, he wouldn't have been around to blow their covers in Cairo.

A lot of things would have been different.

"I knew Colin was gonna double cross the buyers. It's all that fucker knew how to do. Matty, she was well past the halfway mark to running the CIA herself, and I thought she was bein' –" Being overly conservative to protect her damn career. "I thought she was just coverin' her own ass. Never shoulda doubted her, but I did. We knew the buyer was gonna bring backup, but only one dude showed, and I figured it was the best opportunity we were gonna get to take down Grier."

Jack shook his head, grimacing as much at the memory as the painful twinge of his collarbone. "I mighta disobeyed orders a little and left the van to get into position to grab Grier after the sale. The other two agents out there with me, I'd never seen 'em before. I tried to put 'em in position, but they blew me off. The sale went bad. The other two agents were hit, and Grier had me dead to rights. Matty had to wade in herself and get us out."

Matilda Webber was many things. Dangerous. Capable. Intimidating. But what she was not was terribly tall.

"Seller got hold of her. Huge-ass guy, we're talkin' . . . well, damn near Aydin's size. I kinda lost track of her for a second, next thing I knew she was flyin' out the windshield of a crashing SUV. Landed in a pile a' snow. God . . . I know I tease you about the grey hair, but lemme tell you what, boy, she damn well started that trend. I was . . . hell, I didn't know what to do. I picked her up and carried her outta there, don't know if she even knew it was me. Handed her off to the EMTs. All I could think about was gettin' Grier, like if I could just bring him in, it'd all be okay."

It hadn't been. In twenty-two minutes flat he'd blown an op eight moths in the making, gotten a rising star in the CIA nearly killed, let Grier get away, got two agents shot, disobeyed orders to stay in the van in the first place –

He gave a humorless chuckle. "You wanna know the worst part? Besides blowin' the op, losin' Grier . . . I just left her there, man. Hopped in a car and spent _two days_ tryin' to get Grier. By the time I lost his trail for good, she'd been flown back to the States to get treated, and I was so . . . I couldn't face her. I knew I'd let her down, fucked up _so_ bad. I didn't even go see her in the hospital. I just turned in my resignation and went back to finish up my contract with ol' Uncle Sam."

Where he'd ended up as overwatch for EOD in Afghanistan. It was supposed to be a temp gig, but he kept cycling through kids until one stuck.

"And then I met your scrawny ass," he pointed out. "I guess . . . if I'd stayed in the CIA, we prolly never woulda met. I mean, I'm sure I'd'a heard about you by now, some brainy know-it-all doing crazy black magic level shit savin' the world, but . . . maybe you and I woulda never gone to pick up that ambassador. You wouldn't be lyin' here now, that's for sure."

Mac didn't open his eyes, or give any physical indication that he disagreed, but Jack heard him plain as day point out that he would have probably been killed in Afghanistan years ago.

Jack smiled, a little tremulously, and flipped up the sheet – and it was just a sheet now, no more cooling blanket – and picked up his partner's hand. It was warmer, now, but no less –

No less wrong. Still way too soft. Way too fluid.

"I know you woulda chosen this path, bud." He gave the hand a squeeze anyway. "You've saved a lotta people, just like I told ya you would. But dude . . . you got a lot more years ahead of ya. World's still gonna need savin'. Who else is gonna do that, huh?"

He sure as hell couldn't. He'd never been the one.

The best thing Jack Dalton had ever done was run into Angus MacGyver.

"Where you go, I go. Remember?" His voice went unsteady on him, and Jack swallowed it back into working order. "What happened to age before beauty, huh?"

Mac took a measured breath. It sounded resigned.

Jack shook his head, this time not caring about his damn collarbone. "Don't go," he pleaded quietly. "Not like this. Not for someone like him." He took firmer hold of Mac's hand, willed him to feel it. "I know it sucks. I _know_ it, bud. It prolly wasn't lookin' too good when you went under, but I _promise_ you, everything's taken care of. We're all here. We gotcha, Mac. I gotcha."

None of the stats changed. There was no movement from the limp hand he was crushing in his own.

 _Please come back._

"I'm not gonna let go, man. I gotcha. All you gotta do is grab on."

-M-

"You okay?"

Joshua Carter looked down to find Jill Morgan staring at him, a veritable pillar of concern in a sweater and black-rimmed glasses.

He supposed that, without context, his behavior probably looked a little bizarre.

"Fine," he lied, and hopped down off the office chair. "It's not a noose," he adding reassuring.

He watched her eyes travel upwards, to where a thin cord hung from the ceiling, complete with a loop at the bottom large enough to stuff someone's head through. Then the eyes travelled back down to him.

Carter brushed insulation off his hands. "It's not a noose for a person." That was more accurate.

Her eyebrows rose. "Okay," she said, sounding thoroughly unconvinced. "I'm going to pretend I didn't see that, and Employee Assistance is up on five, if you want to talk to someone about it."

He gave her a grin. "You're funny, Morgan."

She didn't seem to think she'd said anything that warranted his amusement. "This is what it's like to be Riley," she muttered to herself, then withdrew a tablet from seemingly nowhere. "I need your John Hancock – uh, your signature."

Carter gave her an odd look but accepted the tablet, scrolling through a bunch of what looked like –

He glanced back up at her. "These the repairs to Webber's residence?"

She nodded. "Even I don't have clearance to view these, so you'll need to go through them and then do the physical inspection before we can sign off. Typically these would go to Agent Dalton, but –"

But Jack Dalton had more important things to be worried about right now.

Making sure his boss's house had been repaired to specs – and making sure the men and women who'd done the work understood _exactly_ what breaking their non-disclosure agreement would lead to – wasn't quite as much fun as his current project, but it was definitely something that needed doing.

One of these work orders had been professional cleaning. To get all the blood out of Matty's living room carpet. And off the walkway in front of the house.

"Agent Hannagahn's funeral will be on Monday, so we'll be having the memorial the following Friday. I don't know if you two knew each other," he added as an afterthought.

Morgan shook her head. "I didn't, not well," she replied sadly. "I mean, we said hi in the hallways, but . . . I don't really associate much with your guys."

Very true. Security typically didn't have much to do with the lab rats, except to reset security systems after toxic gas leaks and every other insane way they seemed to be able to render parts of the facility temporarily uninhabitable.

"Well, you're welcome to come hang anytime," he offered, putting his attention back on the work orders.

Her voice was curiously stilted when she replied. "I'm good."

Carter glanced back up at her, then over his shoulder at the cable. "It's not a –" He stopped, then backtracked. "Saito's been sending us updates from the hospital, including some pretty funny photos. I'm rigging a drop down for when they get back, just for a laugh. It's what Jack would do, if he was here, and typically it'd be Mac –"

It'd be Mac rigging it, with the correct damn knot so that it worked exactly like it should.

Carter hesitated, then set down the tablet. "Typically it'd be Mac in here, making it all go off without a hitch," he finished quietly, not missing the way Jill had dropped her eyes. "How you holding up?"

The analyst took a deep breath. "There's no news," she said, instead of answering the question he'd asked her. "It's been eight hours since the procedure, but he hasn't shown any sign of . . . there's been no change," she finished lamely.

Carter digested that, then sat down on the edge of the desk. ". . . damn." There was nothing else to say.

"Yeah," she agreed.

"Any other ideas? I mean, I'm sure the docs are still doing their thing –"

Jill nodded, and when she looked up, he could see that she'd gotten firm hold of whatever emotions she'd been fighting with. "Yeah, they're still working on it. Us too. Dr. Talbot has recommended an infusion that should keep the drug in Mac's system longer, give it more time to work, since the dialysis is going to clear it out sooner than his kidneys would normally."

He nodded. "Good. And what about you?"

Jill gave him a one-shouldered shrug, then glanced around the office, confirming it was empty. "I've just been doing cleanup. All Matty's medical records have been scrubbed. No one will know that she was – was injured in the attack on her house. I'm still working on the other stuff."

Even he wasn't quite clear on what 'the other stuff' entailed. After Myrrh had been enacted, there had been a scramble to contact their agents abroad and either recall them or have them continue their ops with secured equipment. He presumed some of the 'other stuff' was related to whether the Turks had truly gotten into Phoenix systems far enough to compromise any other operations. As far as he'd seen, there had been no indications from the analysts that that was the case.

"Everything checking out?"

"Yes," she confirmed with a nod. But then she followed it with a frown.

Joshua cocked his head. "Out with it, Morgan."

She opened her mouth, then hesitated. "Colonel Aydin's hacker worked at the UN."

This wasn't news, and he waited patiently while she put the information in an order she knew he'd understand, and then started again.

"For several years she was working on the colonel's behalf. But she was doing it from Geneva, most of the time. We went back and analyzed all travel for the past four years, and never found a connection to anything the colonel was doing. They were all business related, all assigned to her by UN staff members that we've vetted, who had no contact with Aydin."

Then she paused and looked at him expectantly.

Carter just blinked at her. "Okay . . .?"

"Well, that can't be right," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The United Nations doesn't have a hotline to Turkey's intelligence and military organizations. Even if she spoofed someone else's credentials, there was no database at the UN that would have given her the information she then passed to the colonel. So how was she . . . effective? We know she gave them the credentials to land in Camp Bondsteel last year, but before that, intel came from her and went to Aydin, about Erdogan's location, when Aydin's funds were going to be seized, when Turkish intelligence was going to make a move on his assets . . . she wasn't getting that information from the UN, and they haven't found a trace of a backdoor in their own systems, so . . ."

"So where was she getting it," he finished. "You think we left someone in play."

"Yeah. I mean, maybe they're no longer a threat, with the colonel and most of his men gone . . . but she had to be working with someone, someone with ties high up in the Turkish government."

"Or someone with access to one of the higher-ups." Carter leaned back up off his desk. "You and Davis looking into it?"

She nodded, then hesitated. "Well, I am. I haven't sent it to Riley, yet."

And she didn't need to explain why. "Good. You get anywhere with it, let me know. Just in case." He tapped the tablet.

They still didn't know exactly what Hatice Iris had been doing for the past year, and even though they thought they knew how she'd found Matty's house and circumvented the security system, if she had a partner, or had passed along any classified data to someone else . . . Phoenix had a lot of enemies, and that information would fetch top dollar. They might not have the means to use that information themselves, but they could make a pretty penny and then sit back and let someone else do the dirty work.

Morgan nodded. "I will."

"Good – and seriously, Morgan, come by if you need to."

The analyst nodded again, a little jerkily, and then turned on her patent leather heels and left the office.

Carter sighed, then glanced over his shoulder, up at the cable he'd strung.

It did look just like a noose.

-M-

They'd put something in his hair.

Probably to keep it off his face and away from his eyes. Maybe it was antibacterial, too, considering she was wearing two pairs of latex gloves trying to navigate it. Honestly, she couldn't tell if it was some kind of thin oil, or it was a very fine powder, and Riley picked up a lock of his blond hair and rubbed it between her fingers.

"It's not nearly as gross as it was last year," she told him. Her voice echoed slightly in the cavernous room, and Riley had to remind herself that she was absolutely, completely sure that no one outside could hear her. And she was wearing a mask, so no one could read her lips either.

Whatever she said in here, it was for Mac and Mac alone.

He didn't react.

Riley sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed. There was no IV in the way – those were running out of his chest – and the ventilation tubes led off to the machine on Mac's left, so she sat on his right, and hesitantly smoothed her hand over his forehead.

His skin felt warm through the latex. Normal. His eyes were closed, and there was just a little glint of moisture in the corners, which she knew from watching through the observation window was an ointment they were applying so that his eyes didn't dry out.

"This time you could get a hot shower. And I haven't seen a single roach," she added, and when he didn't move, she dared to let her fingers run gently through his hair.

Beside her, the ventilator clicked, and she felt the sheet shift a little as his chest inflated.

"The nurse chased Jack back to bed. He's got an IV now, but it's the kind they can disconnect, so he'll come back up and see you when he's done. Bozer was gonna stay with you, but he was falling asleep, so . . . you're stuck with me."

Mac didn't protest, and there was no sudden alarm from any of the machines attached to him, so she brushed the hair around his temples behind his ears.

"Mom used to do this, whenever I was sick, or had a fever." The memory made her smile a little. "I'd pretend to stay asleep so that she wouldn't stop. Always made me feel better." His hair now swept back somewhat neatly, she smoothed his eyebrows with her thumb. "I guess you probably don't remember, huh."

Having seen pictures of Mac and Bozer as children, there was just no way Mac's mom hadn't done the same to him. He was a damn cute little kid.

Once his eyebrows were tidy and neat, she used her thumb to give them a little arch, near the ends. She was going for angry eyebrows, and the way the ventilator pulled his lips made it look like he was scowling.

Good thing they didn't have a marker in here. She'd be tempted to give him a Hitler mustache. He had a little scruff going, but not much. She wasn't sure if he was slow to grow facial hair, or his body simply wasn't bothering with the effort.

"Boze is pretty upset, Mac," she told him. "I know he's probably coming in here and playing it off, but he's freaking out. Jack's in total denial, which I'm sure is no surprise." She put his eyebrows back into something akin to a peaceful expression. "You need to get your damn shit together. Those guys care about you. Stop dicking them around."

He seemed unperturbed by her change in tone, and Riley couldn't help but smooth his bangs again.

"This doesn't mean that I'm not still really pissed off," she declared, even as she carefully avoided the cut on his temple. "I mean, what the hell was that? Haven't I proven myself more than capable? Those assholes on the train in Germany? That buttchunk in the consulate? The ripoff serial killer? Murdoc? Haven't I aced all the training classes?"

Well, most of them. "Okay, admittedly I didn't really apply myself to Governance and Policies, but whatever. I'm not exactly a fan of the system." It didn't really matter. "Haven't you figured out by now that I can handle myself?"

Beside her, Mac raised his shoulder, and Riley almost squeaked when she felt the mattress shift, right under her butt. It continued to swell a little, with barely a whisper of the compressor, and then it leveled off.

Air mattress. It was periodically shifting the pressure points on his body so he wouldn't get bedsores.

It made it look like he was squirming uncomfortably in his sleep. Like he was just sleeping.

But he wasn't.

And he didn't need to say a word to tell her the real reason he'd lied to her and chucked her off the boat. "Look. I . . . I was thinking the same thing you were. But we were wrong, okay? We were wrong. It was just some effed up head game Hakan was playing." More than that, it was to distract them from the real reason they'd taken her out of that cell. And it worked.

But based on his expression, Mac wasn't buying it.

 _Jeez, project onto other people much?_ she chided herself.

Besides, it was true. All the tests were in. Not a single one definitively proved that she'd been anything more than stripped and beaten up a little. That was all.

That was all.

Whereas Mac -

". . . you can't hear a word I'm saying, can you," she accused sadly. "And you know why that is, you big dumb blond?"

Because you didn't let me help. You didn't let me decide when I had had enough.

You didn't even consider that maybe it was more than you could handle.

"Why didn't you follow me up that ladder?" Her voice sounded so small. "Why did you go back? We could have called it in from the lock, they didn't know we were gone." It might have created a hostage situation on the ship, but it could have been handled. Aydin was no angel, but he wasn't insane. He would have seen that there was no way off that boat. He might have ended up trading the crew and passengers for his freedom, but –

But Mac would have been there to deal with it, and sooner or later they would have caught him.

"We could have handled it. Jack was right there, Boze was in mobile ops. Even Matty was in country." She picked at the stiff hospital sheet.. ". . . you didn't have to do this."

We would have found another way.

"You pulled me out of prison, Mac," she told him, a little unsteadily. "You literally pulled me out of hell. You gave me this job, you gave me a . . . a purpose. You gave me Jack." Everything that had happened in the last couple years, the places she'd gone, the amazing things she'd been a part of.

And after everything he'd given her . . . she'd been a big part of why all of it had been taken away from him.

 _If only you'd just followed me up that ladder._

 _If only I hadn't left you there._

 _God, I just left you there._

"I don't . . . know what I'm supposed to say," she admitted softly. "Thank you for saving my life? You giant fucking idiot?" It's not like she was ungrateful. And in his shoes, she'd been willing to make that trade – her freedom for her mother's. She'd made that choice without hesitating, and would make it again, had made it again. She'd never really considered how it made her mother feel.

This was how Mac must have felt, after last year. After the villa, when he found out everything that had happened. He'd gone to the memorial for the four fallen agents – however reluctantly. And she'd hoped – they'd all hoped – that he'd realize that op was bigger than just getting him back. That the agents that had died didn't die _because_ of him.

And she knew this situation was kind of similar. This wasn't just about rescue. It was about Aydin, it was about Matty, it was about shutting down that group for good. But she was a large part of why it had gone down the way it had gone down. And even if she'd never gone to that grey hat convention, Aydin's _Bordo Berelilers_ would have gotten her. It wasn't like she didn't know that. Just as surely as she knew that if there hadn't been videos she couldn't remember, and interrogations she couldn't remember, that Mac wouldn't have done what he did. He wouldn't have been so desperate to get her out of there.

"I know it's not my fault," she admitted quietly. "But I feel responsible."

 _I left you there._

Just like he'd made her promise to.

Hell, he probably knew she'd just agreed to that to make him stop giving her that look.

And she didn't know what to do about it. Asking for help _generally_ was hard enough – she couldn't ask for help with this, no matter what Saito or John thought. Not from Jack, not from Bozer. Both of them were losing so much more than she was.

Normally she'd go to Mac for advice about something like this.

"Don't suppose you have any words of wisdom?" It was a longshot, and she tried not to feel disappointed when he didn't respond. "Since you _clearly_ also have a hard time asking for help . . ."

And maybe that _was_ her answer. He didn't need to say anything at all to show her the cost of that choice.

Directly behind her, a machine began to chime. Loudly.

Riley bolted off the bed. Mac didn't react, but the panels and monitors above his head started flashing, and turned yellow. It wasn't immediately obvious to her what the problem was; all the numbers looked low to her. But the one that caught her attention was labeled O2. It was at 90. As she watched, it dropped to 88.

It was supposed to be 100.

"Mac?"

Motion in her peripheral vision drew her attention, and she caught the tail end of two people sprinting down the hallway. In a couple seconds they were through the door and throwing on infection prevention gear.

She tore her eyes away, back to Mac. He didn't so much as twitch, even as a new machine added itself to the cacophony.

 _No. No no no no no-_

"Mac!" she tried again, and then she had to back up a few steps as the nurses rushed over. There was another blur of motion in the observation window, and a third machine starting beeping. None of them had the same pitch or rhythm. The sound was overwhelming.

And Mac didn't move.

The nurses were speaking to one another urgently in Dutch. The first one peeled back the sheet, exposing Mac's bandages and central line, and the other was tearing into a package containing a syringe. A third person entered the room, barely slowing enough to grab a smock. Riley didn't even realize she was still backing up until she bumped into the counter on the back wall.

The first nurse reached out and tapped the touchscreen, and two of the alarms stopped. The numbers were still flashing. The second nurse had finally gotten the syringe free and was administering the contents, and both of them were glued to the monitors. One of the machines was still insistently beeping, though, and the third person – a doctor that Riley recognized from earlier – physically shifted one of the nurses to get access to Mac's bedside.

Riley didn't know enough Dutch to pick up what was going on. Just that it was bad.

She felt like she couldn't breathe. All she could see around the equipment and the clinicians was a sliver of his face, just his eyes and the bridge of his nose. His eyes stayed closed, relaxed. He had no response to the bedlam around him.

She never noticed the last machine finally going silent. It barely registered that one of the nurses hurried away. All Riley could see was that sliver of his face, the flashing monitor, and the way his doctor hovered there, absolutely still, like she was holding her breath. Watching not him, but the screens. Waiting.

The other nurse came back, this time with a bag of fluids, and he and his partner hooked it up immediately. But the doctor didn't move, so Riley didn't either. She just stood frozen in that spot, and waited for something to happen.

And then the monitors stopped flashing, and turned white again.

The band around Riley's chest tightened, rather than loosening, and she watched the doctor stay right where she was, at his side. Eyes still on the monitors. It seemed like an eternity before she relaxed, and only then did Riley suck in a deep, unsteady breath.

He was still here. Mac was still here.

There was some more rapid-fire Dutch, and then the doctor turned, and seemed to notice her for the first time. Riley would have backed up further if she could have; at some point her hands had drawn up to her chest, and she was too terrified of touching anything else to relax them.

"Miss –"

"Did I do that?" she blurted. "Oh my god, did I do that?"

The doctor's eyes crinkled above her mask, and then the woman was at Riley's side, taking her hands. "No, no. That wasn't anything you did. You're fine. You're okay."

For the life of her, Riley couldn't figure out why the doctor would be saying that to _her_. "W-what happened? Is he okay? What –"

"Just a drop in blood pressure. It's very common with dialysis patients," the doctor told her, her voice soothing. "It affected his O2 stats, but only for a moment. I know the machines can be alarming. Everything's fine. We're going to watch him for a little while, to make sure he's stable. Why don't you sit down?"

For some reason, Riley found herself out of breath, and embarrassment starting winning out over blind panic.

"I'm – I'm, uh-" She shook her head quickly. "I'm fine. He's okay?" Stupid question, _stupid_ question, of course he's not -

"We're going to stay here with him for a few minutes, just in case," the doctor repeated kindly. "I think you should have a seat."

"No," she said, without thinking. There were no chairs anyway. "I'll . . . I don't want to be in the way." She drew back from the doctor, not realizing the woman had still been holding her hands until she pulled them away, and they suddenly felt chilled.

"You're not in the way-"

"I'll . . . come back and see him when you're done," she assured the doctor, already heading for the door. "I should –"

Tell Bozer. Or Jack if he was awake. They should know –

There was no way that was a normal thing. Not with how many people just suddenly appeared. Not with the urgency with which they'd spoken, they'd moved. They wouldn't all be staying if everything was fine.

Mac was dying.

She knew that, it was a stupid thought, but it grabbed hold of her gut and squeezed. All this time, she'd known it, but now it was happening right in front of her. And it was fast, and loud, and sudden, and he was so still. Maybe it would happen again in the next few minutes, maybe not for hours, but it _would_ happen again, and again, until he didn't respond anymore to the doctors and the drugs.

Riley ripped off the mask and the smock with shaking hands, She couldn't even get a finger under the latex gloves and she gave up after a frustrated cry tried to well up in her throat. She just had to get out, take a second. She couldn't do this right now.

She couldn't just stand there and watch.

Riley pushed open the door, still struggling with the gloves, and at the end of the hall, a figure caught her attention. A Phoenix agent - Ramirez. He seemed to hesitate by the stairwell door, and she turned on her heels and headed the other direction. There was an agent at that end of the hall, too, but he was Dutch and she didn't care. Riley diverted at the last second for the only doorknob in the hallway that was normal, and it once again gave without any effort, and opened up into the empty office.

The office where people got bad news.

Riley finally managed to tear one of the gloves off, and the shredded blue latex was very obvious on the dark carpeting. Now that she had fingernails free, she ripped the other one off, but not without snapping herself painfully on the wrist and scratching the back of her own hand. Riley wadded up the damned thing and hurled it across the room, before she covered her mouth and physically held back any sound.

 _Calm down. Calm down. Calm down._

It hadn't worked the first time, and it sure as hell didn't work now.

She sat down on the couch, but bounced right back off of it when she realized that there was no sitting still. Pacing was better. She could count steps, she could look at things on the shelves-

Like his face, just his eyes and the bridge of his nose. Not moving.

 _Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out._

She was going to have to go back in there. He shouldn't be alone, she'd already left him alone once, fucking abandoned him just like she was doing now, and he was fucking right, she couldn't do this –

On her next lap of the room, she realized Ramirez was there, near the door. He spoke to her, but he didn't touch her, nobody touched her because they didn't think she could fucking handle _that_ either, and she couldn't, she just needed to calm the hell down, just needed one goddamn _second_ –

Ramirez was gone by the next lap.

It helped, but not enough. The toys made her think of that picture of Mac and Bozer, both wearing cowboy hats and sheriff stars, clearly for some kind of school function because both of them had been just this side of pouting. On the desk was a perpetual motion machine, which Mac would tell her wasn't really a perpetual motion machine, but if he combined it with the Godzilla doll and the yo-yo it would look like an attack on Tokyo –

She laughed at her own thoughts, because it was easier than crying and it occurred to her that sooner or later that was probably going to happen, so she should get it out of the way while she was alone –

He was never going to make another thing out of some other thing.

There was never going to be some random save of a mission using whatever crap was lying around. There was never going to be another quick fix of a device using half of a soda can and the cap from the ketchup bottle.

She couldn't even remember the last one he'd made -

That wasn't true. It was a screwdriver, out of a fake Dutch driver's license.

She laughed again, imagining his expression at realizing his last improvisation was so blasé.

And that wasn't true either. She had no idea what he'd done to trash the ship. It was still being raised off the bottom of the Rhine. Once they drained all the water out, they might never actually know what he'd done versus what the water had.

His very last improvisation, and no one would ever know what it was. Just the Turks who had been on that ship. And most of them were already dead.

Riley turned away from the desk, and wrapped her arms around her aching chest. And finally realized she wasn't alone anymore. There was a woman in the room, another agent. Patience. The name fit. She looked pretty patient.

"Can I help?"

It was the perfectly wrong question. No one could help. Riley shook her head and turned back to the desk, but her eyes fell on the perpetual motion machine again and then skittered for the window, which was the only safe place to look.

"Riley . . . take a deep breath."

She knew she sounded like she'd just run a 5K, so she nodded and gave it a try.

On her next pass, the diminutive agent guided her to the couch, and this time somehow her knees buckled, because she found herself hanging onto the edge of the leather cushion so tightly that she felt one of her fingernails break. She couldn't catch her breath.

A hand found its way to her back, soothing. Not hesitant, not unsure. Confident and strong. Like her mother. Like Jack.

Her eyes pricked, and Riley closed them with a shudder.

 _No. Can't do this._

"I'm okay," she choked out. "I just need a second."

"Okay," Patience told her. And proceeded to not leave, and rub her back instead. And little by little, almost like magic, it helped.

It helped.

Riley had almost caught her breath before she realized what the hell was going on.

Ramirez was still nowhere to be seen, but Saito was standing in the doorway. He wasn't saying anything, wasn't coming in. He was exchanging a look with Patience, who hadn't stopped rubbing her back, and Riley realized that the short Asian woman hadn't just magically appeared.

Ramirez had gotten Saito. And Saito had gotten Patience.

She wasn't that close to the other agent. Didn't know her well at all. But she was the only female Phoenix agent there besides herself and Matty.

And that was who Saito had gotten.

He'd told her. He'd told Patience.

Riley stared at him, almost uncomprehendingly. How . . . how could he have told someone? How could he have –

"Riley?"

She flinched, tearing her eyes away from a visibly confused Saito to look at the shorter woman. Riley struggled to find her voice.

"I . . . I don't know what –"

"Relax." Agent Keung kept running her hand up soothingly up and down her back. "Mac's stable for now. Ramirez came and got me just in case."

It took longer than it should have for the words to sink in.

Ramirez got her. In case -

In case Mac had just died.

Not Saito. And not because -

Because nothing. It hadn't happened.

It hadn't happened.

"There you go. Deep breaths," the other agent encouraged, in her soft voice. "I can give you something to help you rest, if you want. It won't knock you out," she hastened to add, apparently at Riley's expression. "It's herbal. Just to take the edge off."

Riley was shaking her head before the other agent even finished speaking.

"I would be pretty leery of drugs right now too, if I were you." Patience didn't sound even slightly offended. "But you look like you could use some sleep."

Riley shook her head again. "No, I mean – yeah, I will. You don't – you don't have to stay. I'm good."

"No you're not." The tac medic's voice was dry, though she was smiling. "And that's perfectly okay, by the way."

Riley glanced back at the door, but Saito was gone.

"What did he . . ." she started carefully. "What did he tell you?"

"Saito?" The other agent looked momentarily surprised. "Nothing. We don't talk much." It was Riley's turn to look surprised, and the smaller woman patted her back. "He's Japanese. We're ethnically required to hate each other."

It took her way too long to figure out the Taiwanese agent was joking, and even when she did, she couldn't dredge up a smile. "Look – thank you. I'm –"

"If the next words out of your mouth are better, okay, or fine, I'm going to start believing that you're biologically related to Jack," the medic interrupted. "I don't know you that well, but you strike me as way too smart for that." Then she paused. "Is there something Saito _should_ have told me?"

"No," Riley said, too quickly.

Patience took it in stride. "He's worried about you."

"Well, he doesn't need to be." Even Riley could hear the defensiveness in it. "I'm not the one-"

Dying.

Her fellow agent sighed, then patted her once more, and withdrew her hand. The moment the slight pressure was gone, Riley found she missed it.

"I'm not a physician," she started quietly. "I'm just a basic medic with a background in Eastern medicine. But I can tell you that he's not in any pain. What happened a few minutes ago is a pretty common side effect of dialysis. It didn't hurt him."

Given the way the machines had responded, Riley didn't believe that for one second. "So . . . that'll happen again."

Patience gave it some thought. "Probably not anytime soon. They've just started a transfusion, and that will improve his overall blood volume. If you want, I can go speak with his physician, and get a real update?"

She wasn't sure she wanted one. All it was going to tell her was that Mac was worse.

But still, knowing what to expect had to be better than – than what had just happened. "Uh . . . actually, that would be good. Thanks," she added quietly.

The agent nodded, and smoothly took her feet. "Would you like me to send Saito in?"

Not really. "I don't think you can keep him out," Riley half-growled. To her surprise, Patience gave her a sly smile.

"I could give him a run for his money," she said airily. "I'll come find you when I know more."

Riley nodded, taking a deep breath and rolling her head on her shoulders as the other agent left. She was vaguely surprised when she finished trying to work out the kinks – unsuccessfully – and looked up to find she was still alone.

Huh. Maybe Patience _could_ keep Saito out.

Riley ran a restless hand through her hair, and the back of it stung where she'd scratched herself. She inspected it critically. No biggie. Just one more bump and scrape to add to the rest.

Just bumps and scrapes. Nothing more.

That's all it was. And this wasn't the first time someone had knocked her around, either. She'd been held at gunpoint. Tied up and very nearly cattle prodded right next to Jack in a mall turned black market art gallery. Had a professional killer pinned between her legs, both of them struggling for their lives.

This was no different.

Riley flopped back on the couch, willing the tight ball in her stomach to loosen. Patience would come back and let her know what to expect, and then she'd go back in there and hang out with Mac until Bozer woke up, like she said she would. Or at the very least, she'd put his music back on.

The music he couldn't hear. If those machines hadn't done the trick –

Riley closed her eyes.

There was a quiet knock on the door.

She blindly patted the cushion next to her, but unfortunately didn't locate anything useful, like a pillow the right size for hurling at the door. And she never actually heard it open; she felt the air shift as a cooler breeze from the hallway interacted with the warmer air of the office.

Riley opened her eyes and glared.

Saito had silently shut the door behind him, and had the good grace to look apologetic. "Everything okay in here?"

"Why don't you tell me." His expression didn't really change, so she continued. "Any other agents you'd like to bring in? Maybe Jack, he's not already having a bad enough day."

Saito cocked his head, then surprised her by crossing the room to sit down on the couch beside her. Not too close. Not touching. "I haven't talked to Jack about this. I haven't said anything anyone couldn't have figured out on their own."

His tone was lighter than the words, and Riley made sure her voice was good and steady when she replied.

"Really. And what's that?"

He frowned at her. "They know Aydin had you for a week. They can see the marks on your face and your arms. They know you were admitted to a hospital in Düsseldorf for a physical and observation, and treated by four staff there, including a nurse Sophie Roth."

Riley's stomach plummeted.

"They have all of Sarah Ditmer's test results. They know you received several incoming calls from Sophie Roth that you didn't answer, and they know that she received a phone call at her residence at the same time you made an encrypted call from this hospital. They know that she typically deals in human trafficking victims, which is why she was assigned to your case. They also know that she has a pattern of calling her patients after they've been discharged, to check up on them and deliver any additional results."

Saito paused, and Riley waited for the other shoe to drop. The nonexistent patient they'd discovered named Annamarie, and _her_ test results.

"They don't know how long Nurse Sophie spent with you in Admitting before you were transferred up to a room, or anything that happened between your being admitted and hopping back on the op. They don't know the itemized contents of the evidence bag downstairs, which contains everything you were wearing when you arrived at the hospital."

At first she didn't realize why that was a pertinent detail, until she did a quick inventory in her head and realized what had been missing. One dress, one niqab, one tank-top.

No panties.

Of course he would have noticed.

"Since you haven't been debriefed, there's no reason for any of them to know those things, or to make any assumptions about what they might mean," Saito continued. "Jack ordered me to keep you safe. I'm going to do that until he's capable of reclaiming the job, or he gives it to someone else."

He paused then, simply watching her. And Riley wasn't sure what to say.

"Jack ordered you?" was the first thing that popped into her head.

Saito's eyebrows twitched. "Yes he did."

For some reason, it made her feel just a tiny bit better about his attention. "So that's why you've been glued to my ass?"

"I've been glued to your ass because I care about you, and there are assholes out there who want you dead," he corrected flatly. "Is that okay?"

And it occurred to her, quiet suddenly, that Saito was angry.

He was angry at _her_.

For believing that he would have betrayed her confidence.

For a split second, she felt deeply ashamed. For all that she hadn't been sleeping, he hadn't either. She'd probably scared the hell out of him when she'd wandered away from security to call Sophie, and the look she'd given him just now –

Riley shifted uncomfortably on the couch. Saito didn't move a muscle.

"It didn't happen," she admitted, quietly. "What you're thinking. It didn't happen."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said immediately. "You don't report to me, and you don't owe me anything."

She actually snorted. "I owe you a lot . . . I . . . I'm sorry. I'm sorry, when I looked up and I saw Patience, I thought –"

"That I brought up one of your colleagues, who I hoped would be nonthreatening, considering I didn't see any five foot four Turkish women under Aydin's command?" he suggested, his tone still flat.

And she deserved that. "Look, I don't know why I'm – why I'm _reacting_ this way. I don't –"

"Dammit, Davis, what did I tell you about you and your checklists?" Finally, there was inflection in his voice. Honest frustration. He turned on the couch to face her, but didn't get any closer. "A DNA test doesn't decide whether something happened or didn't. If someone forced you to do something, or forced themselves _on_ you, that is every bit the violation that it feels like, and it doesn't have to meet these imaginary criteria you're measuring yourself up against!"

She stared at him, a little startled, and he scowled. "And no, I didn't put everything together until about ten minutes ago. If . . . if you don't want me or John, or Simmons or Ramirez around, I get it. Patience is a good agent. She can keep you safe." He sighed a little, and modulated his voice. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"You're not," her mouth announced, with zero input from her brain.

His expression turned considering. "That's not how John tells it."

She knew it was an attempt to lighten the mood. And she appreciated it. "I know you're not going to hurt me. I don't know why I'm doing this –"

"I do," he interrupted her. "Would you like me to tell you?"

She blinked at him. "Uh . . . okay . . ."

Saito smiled at her in disbelief. "A bunch of assholes laid their hands on you without your permission. And if I wasn't already sure that all of them are dead, I would kill them myself. What you're feeling right now is pretty much the way I felt after Lisbon. And the way Mac felt after we got him out of that manor."

She pulled herself up straighter, the denial on her lips, that she didn't have PTSD, that she hadn't been _tortured_ , and Saito raised a silencing finger.

"Stop it," he ordered her firmly. "I swear to God if you say that it doesn't count or it's not the same – look. Gender doesn't matter. Sex doesn't matter. Someone _hurt_ you. Your body isn't going to just forget that any more than your mind is. Stop beating yourself up for reacting like a human. If you don't want to hang around a bunch of dudes right now, _don't_."

Then he seemed to think better of that. "Well, I suppose it's kind of a sausage party out there right now, so that's going to be - a little more challenging than I just made it sound –"

Riley couldn't help a very unladylike snort. "It's going to be 'hard'. You can say it."

He barked out a startled laugh. "Jesus Christ, Davis. I'm trying here!"

She smirked. "Yeah, you are. Badly," she teased him. Then she relented. "But I appreciate it. Really."

He nodded, and his own smile settled into something less playful. Something more fond. "Are we good?"

Riley thought about what to say – then she simply leaned over and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the embrace, and she squeezed him until he realized that she wasn't going to break, and hugged her like he meant it.

"Thank you," she whispered, and he gave her one more squeeze before he let her go.

"I can go sit with Mac if you want to chill out for a while."

She shook her head, but before she could explain why it needed to be her, there was a quiet knock on the door. A second later, it opened, and Patience ducked in. She seemed completely unsurprised to see them sitting on the couch, and she came over to lean on the armrest on Riley's other side.

"I have some news," Patience said gravely, and every bit of the comfort Saito had managed to impart to her shriveled up and vanished.

-M-

He pulled the chair up as close to the mattress as he dared, eying it uncertainly as he approached. His roomie seemed to be frowning.

"Nuh-uh. Don't you give me that look. I know what you did the last time someone got all up in your space," Bozer told him matter-of-factly. "And don't you dare pull that shit with me, Mac. I know all your secrets. Don't think I won't tell Jack what _really_ happened to that signed Willie Nelson LP."

It seemed like Mac was holding his breath, and Wilt kept him in suspense a good ten seconds. When it started getting a little longer than that, he glanced worriedly at the ventilator.

It had a setting that said how many breaths per minute, but not a countdown of when they were going to happen. He was honestly starting to get seriously concerned before it clicked, and he sighed in relief with Mac.

"Who am I kidding?" He slouched against the chair – they'd finally decontaminated an actual chair, with an actual back, and it reminded him. "We ditched that stupid stool, so now at least I can hang here with you and not be worried I'm gonna crack my fool head open on the floor."

Mac didn't look nearly sympathetic enough, and Bozer leaned forward again, watching him for any sign of movement. When he didn't get it, he reached up and flicked his best friend's ear with his forefinger. Hard.

Nothing. Not so much as a twitch of his eyelids.

"Come on, man," he pleaded. "It's been twelve hours. It should be workin' by now. You gotta gimme somethin'. You gotta _try_ , dude."

Mac didn't respond.

He sighed, then let his head fall forward, so that his forehead was resting on the edge of the mattress. "Mac . . . you're gettin' pretty sick. Your blood pressure's low 'cause your kidneys and liver are checkin' out. The hematologist says your white count's fallin'. An' I remember enough of high school biology to know you need those li'l guys to fight off infection."

There was no reaction from the bed.

"I'm not goin' to your funeral," he threatened, around the lump in his throat. "An' I'm not sayin' goodbye. I'm not, you hear me?"

It occurred to him, belatedly, that he actually didn't hear what he expected to, and Bozer sat back up, glancing around the room in confusion. Where the hell was the –

But it was there. Jack's phone, sitting in the charging base, attached to the speaker. It was on, and when he leaned over to the nearby counter and tapped the screen, he saw that the music had been paused.

Then he squinted at the screen. ". . what the hell is – oh."

Riley.

He tapped play, and the room was filled with the soft sound of house trance. He wasn't sure it was what Mac would pick – hell, it was more his poison than his roomie's – but it was somehow relaxing and toe-tapping at the same time. He let it go through its progression until the beat dropped, and couldn't help shaking his head.

"That's our girl," he agreed.

He'd picked the things Mac listened to when he worked on the motorcycle, or when he was in his bedroom and needed to do some hard tinkering on something more delicate. Knowing it was Jack's phone, he was pretty sure there was some country and oldies on there too. He should have thought of that, that they'd want to add their own flair. He hadn't even asked, Jack had handed him the phone like it was most natural thing in the world and he'd been in such a hurry to fill up that terrible silence –

He'd never be able to listen to any of this again.

"Man, I know you don't wanna ruin Lady Gaga for me forever," he said aloud. "That's what's gonna happen here if you keep this up."

Like before, threats didn't seem to faze him.

Nothing did.

Bozer slumped in the seat, and they sat and listened to the track, together, until it ended. And sure enough, Willie was up next. On the Road Again.

Only there weren't going to be any more road trips.

No more going places they'd never been. Seeing things they might never see again. They were the best of friends, and for all Bozer was insisting that the world turn their way –

It wasn't.

He swallowed another lump, and then reached out and grabbed Mac's hand. It was above the sheets, someone else had clearly had the idea and the nurses hadn't needed to tuck him back under. It was far too pliable, almost like a warm ballistic dummy. Bozer pressed it flat against his chest and held on tight.

"You feel that, Mac?" he asked unevenly. "That's my heart. Breakin'."

The numbers on the panels didn't change. The ventilator clicked, and Mac took a breath. That was all.

". . . please wake up."

They stayed like that until Freddy Mercury reminded them both that the show must go on, and the door cracked open. Bozer glanced over, a little afraid that he was going to get shit from Nurse Ratched for touching Mac, but he saw immediately that it was the other neurologist. Teuling. The man glanced over at them, but he didn't seem overly worried about it. He slipped on a smock and another pair of gloves, and carried over a small tray.

A syringe full of either very warm, or ice cold saline solution.

Bozer had made him explain the test to him yesterday. Why they were squirting water into Mac's ear, and why it would make his eyes move. It had something to do with tricking his brain into thinking his head was turning, and the automatic function of his brain and nerves that caused his eyes to stay looking straight ahead in their eye sockets.

Why it was called a caloric reflex, he had no idea. It seemed to have nothing to do with calories, and it felt a little too much like 'pulling a Jack' to ask.

Dr. Teuling gave him a nod and waved him down when Bozer started to stand. "You're fine," he assured him warmly, and angled himself between Mac and the ventilator, on Mac's left. "I've been enjoying Luka's taste in music."

Wilt nodded and hesitantly sat back down, then swapped his hold, folding Mac's hand into his own in the clasp they used for their most sacred pacts.

"Straight As, now," Bozer reminded him, trying to make his voice sound light. Henrik gave him an encouraging nod, and set the tray down on the mattress beside Mac. He had to tilt Mac's head, just a little, to get the surgical towel under it, and then he gently swiped his hand over Mac's eyes, pulling them both open.

Mac stared up at the ceiling blankly. His pupils didn't react.

Wilt knew it wasn't necessarily a bad sign – he'd never seen them move – but he couldn't help the little twinge of nervousness that fluttered in his stomach.

"Come on, man. Come on back," he pleaded, almost to himself.

Henrik also peered into Mac's eyes, and after watching them for a moment, he uncapped the needleless syringe, and injected the fluid into Mac's left ear.

Wilt counted down the seconds. Sometimes it took a little while for whatever reaction it was to happen, and he tightened his grip on Mac's hand, willing him to hold back.

 _Come on, Mac. Please._

Nothing happened. His eyes remained staring at a fixed point somewhere above Henrik's forehead.

The doctor stared back at him, unblinkingly, far longer than he had before. Then he reached out and tapped Mac's lower eyelashes with a gloved finger.

Neither his eyelid nor his eye flinched.

-M-

I've warned some of you, but I should probably make a larger announcement – I will be disappearing for pretty much the month of December. So I'm trying very hard to get this story to a good place of resolution before I do. The next two chapters are all plotted out (and one is partially written) and I will do my level best to make sure we get an answer one way or another on what happens to Mac, and what happens to everyone else.

But there will still be a large chunk of story after that hiatus.

Now, as for what you just read – Mac received the experimental treatment, but it doesn't seem to be working. We finally get (at least Jack's) deets on Chechnya. Jill's still worried that they might have left one more bad guy in play, and you'd have to go waaaaaay back to the beginning of this story to figure out who. Riley finally gets the nerve to go talk to Mac, but he crashed and she ended up talking to Patience and Saito instead. Bozer's right there with him when Mac finally bombs the last reflex test.

And we all know what this means.


	21. Chapter 21

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning** : Super mild tearjerk warning.

-M-

He'd kill to have his tac teams operate like this.

The thought just popped into his head, like a fly ball to left field. Everyone in there knew exactly what they were doing, what the guy next to them was doing, how long it was going to take, and exactly when they could pick up where the last guy left off and perform their own task.

Tubes were swapped, with hands held out blindly only to have just the right tool placed in them. Machines moved soundlessly into position, and nurses sidestepped without even having to turn their heads. Jack was sure, if the room wasn't so well sound-proofed, that he'd hear the usual chatter and swearing that had to accompany something like this, but there in the hallway, it was just a perfect, silent dance.

 _You'd be impressed, bud._

Nothing stopping him from opening his eyes to see it.

Beside him, Bozer sighed, his first deep breath in probably two hours. " . . . they said the dialysis mighta impacted things, but they're hookin' it back up . . ."

Jack didn't know which machine did what. He didn't want to, either.

"I guess 'cause they have to."

"Boze." His voice sounded weirdly strangled, and Jack cleared his throat. "Dude, why don't you go grab some grub. I'll keep an eye on him."

Wilt didn't move. He'd ceased fidgeting hours ago, pretty much as soon as they'd taken Mac away for more tests.

And Jack knew getting Bozer away from Mac at this point was going to take an act of Congress. Maybe an act of God.

But there was no use in the both of them just standing there. Whatever happened next, it wasn't going to be instantaneous. Wasn't going to happen for a while. They needed to settle in for a marathon, not a sprint.

"Seriously. They wouldn't be hookin' him back up to every damn machine in there if they didn't think it'd still do him some good." Jack jerked his chin at the group of four doctors, standing in the corner near the computer terminal, all seeming to silently and occasionally glance at each other. Only faint movements, little shadows on their masks gave away the spirited discussion clearly underway.

"Besides, Meijer ain't in there. If anything was gonna happen, this is where she'd be."

Bozer didn't say anything, for so long that Jack actually took a breath, to try convincing him a third time, before Wilt cut him off. "You can't text me. Your phone's in there."

Which was right where it was supposed to be. Hopefully still on, still acting like a beacon for Mac. Hopefully still one of the tools he could use to get himself out of this.

"He can borrow mine."

Both men turned in unison, though neither had to. Harlan's heavy Dutch accent was a dead giveaway. The deputy director was back in a brown suit, a sure sign he was officially re-instated, and he reached into his jacket and produced a black smartphone. "I have your number," he assured the younger agent.

Bozer didn't budge. But Jack could see immediately it had less to do with stubbornness, and more to do with fear.

Wilt was afraid that he wasn't going to be here the next time Mac crashed on them. That he wasn't going to be here when Mac lost the war. Probably almost as afraid of missing it as he was of being there for it.

He didn't need to be afraid. Mac wasn't going anywhere. Not if Jack had anything to say about it.

"Go on. Grab me somethin' too. Ain't nothin' gonna happen here without ya, I promise you."

It took the guy another twenty seconds or so, then his eyes cut back to the observation window, where the nurses were finishing up the show and peeling off their gear. The only thing that one doc – Henry? – had told them was that a specialist was coming in from across town to run some kind of scan, and that they would be permitted back in the room after.

Meaning they wouldn't be allowed in the room until that clown showed up, did his thing, and bounced.

Bloodshot brown eyes flicked to him, and Jack gave Wilt a solemn nod. It still took him a minute to find enough steam to move his legs, though. Not til some of the nurses actually left Mac's room did Boze start to believe it.

"I'm gonna grab a shower in your room, that okay?"

"No problemo, mi amigo. Don't use up all the shampoo."

Seeing as they both had fairly short-cropped hair, it was a pretty lame joke, and didn't even earn him a half-assed smile. Bozer simply nodded to Harlan, then trudged towards the stairs, and the Phoenix agent waiting there.

Who was another phone source, whenever Harlan bailed.

Wolff took a step closer, on his bad side, and Jack agreeably gave ground so the Dutchie could see. Outside of his new blue and white beauty marks, Mac looked exactly like he had just three hours ago, and Jack resisted the urge to give Harlan an update.

This was Wolff's territory. Hell, he probably knew at least as much as they did, and he hadn't had a Riley to hack into the hospital systems to get it.

"How is he?"

So much for skipping the update. "Not great." Which was painfully obvious. "Still hangin' in there. We're waiting for some drugs to kick in, give him a fightin' chance."

Wolff was quiet a moment. "I understand he suffered a brain injury on top of the other trauma."

There was absolutely nothing off about the man's tone, but it made Jack stiffen, all the same. "He's tougher than he looks. He'll pull through."

"I hope so. You seem to be doing better."

Jack blinked, then turned, so he could look at the other man without tweaking his collarbone. "What brings you up here?"

Harlan kept his eyes on the room – not on Mac, but on the doctor party in the corner. "I came to debrief one of my agents, and he's asleep. I personally found that hard to come by in this place, so I'm letting Wagner rest." He gestured – still holding his phone – towards Mac. "I thought I would come up here and see if his condition had improved."

A perfectly reasonable answer. Just a man killing time letting one of his injured employees catch some zzz's.

"Which reminds me." Wolff unlocked his phone, scrolling through a few screens, and then he offered it to Jack. It was a little awkward, but Dalton managed to grab it with his left hand and found himself looking at a black tac vest in what looked like a glass museum case.

At first glance it was unremarkable, and he cocked an eyebrow at Wolff. The older man nodded back to the phone. "Zoom in."

Jack parked the phone in his immobilized right hand and zoomed with his left, and then the holes in the front of the vest became readily apparent. Someone had put the vest on a bright white dummy torso, so that it was clear the bullets hadn't penetrated.

He counted at least four bulletholes in the fabric and Kevlar front.

"Someone got their money's worth."

Harlan gave a little huff of amusement. "Yes, you did," he agreed, and Jack refocused on the vest.

And there was the fifth hole, just where the dummy's collarbone was.

"Huh," he said, and offered back the phone. If he recalled correctly, the back should have three similar holes.

"Indeed," Wolff agreed, accepting the phone and still sounding amused. "As soon as we completed our ballistic documentation we turned it over to the manufacturer. It's on display in their lobby." The deputy director scrolled through a couple photos, different shots of the vest. "It's being kept intact forensically, if it's needed as evidence in any later proceedings."

Warning bells started ringing in his head, and Jack simply grunted an acknowledgement and focused back on the observation window.

"Given the state of that vest, it's remarkable that you're walking around."

Wolff could go fishing all he wanted - Jack wasn't in the mood to play. "The armor did its job, but I'm still pissin' blood. I'm thinkin' I oughta go in there and borrow Mac's dialysis machine." He made a show of glancing at the catheter in his left elbow, with a funny little port taped to his arm, just to drive the point home.

Wolff made a sympathetic noise. "Those shots were all fired by Iris?"

So not fishing. Straight up debriefing. Jack wondered if Matty was aware. "Just about." Technically that wasn't anything that wasn't already on record. Every single damn gunshot should have been caught on coms for posterity. And he knew damn well they were sharing com traffic, which meant com recordings.

Recordings that weren't admissible in court, thanks to espionage agreements between world powers. Neither were the infrared satellite feeds.

Wolff was silent a moment. "How is it you managed to avoid being shot by Kadir Hakan?"

Luck. "He tagged me once, so we decided to play catch with a grenade." Then Jack turned, ninety degrees, and looked the Dutch deputy director in the eye. "You plannin' on gettin' to the point anytime soon?"

There was not a hint of a smile on the other man's face. "Hatice Iris was a UN employee. There _will_ be an investigation into her involvement, as well as her death."

Jack had to resist the urge to shrug – it would hurt too much. "And?"

The other man's eyes went flat. "And I expect the panel will have a few questions for you."

Answering to some talking heads – even his own – didn't make the top five list of shit he cared about right this moment. "Let 'em. She was a clear and present threat –"

"She was unarmed with her hands raised," Wolff cut him off.

Not the way _he_ remembered it. "She was far from unarmed, and only a couple feet away from another weapon." Jack wasn't entirely sure that was true, but his rifle had been in that clearing _somewhere._ "Besides, you and I both know she didn't need a gun. All she needed was a damn phone."

Whether she was technically unarmed, technically walking backwards, she'd been swearing a blood oath to kill Riley. And take another whack at Matty and Mac, once she realized they were still alive. All he really remembered was wondering if he was bleeding out himself, and wanting nothing more than to make damn sure they all stayed safe.

The deputy director's eyebrows twitched. "Is that the reason you crushed another suspect's hand during apprehension?"

He shoulda known that was gonna come back to bite him, even if John had smoothed things over with Sterling. "Dude, I don't have time for this. If you're gonna charge me with somethin', do it. Otherwise, get outta my face." He turned back to the observation window, in time to see one of the doctors in the corner answer his phone, then head for the door.

"Yes, I can see you're quite busy," Harlan observed blandly. "You've been serving as MacGyver's overwatch since 2011? It's a job that's never really finished, is it."

The flippant comment stabbed him right in the heart. He'd fallen down on that job, that was why Mac was lyin' in that bed. It should have pissed him off. Instead, all Jack felt was –

Exhausted.

The only fight that mattered was the one happening in that room.

". . . I never thanked you. For what you did for him." It has been Harlan who had arranged the medevac, who had gotten medical on that boat before they'd cleared it. Done more than he had to do to try to prevent exactly what was happening right now.

And maybe it still wasn't quite thanking him, but after that cheap shot, an acknowledgement was all he was gonna get.

"It was the least I could do." Wolff, too, was quieter. "He saved many lives, both years ago and now."

Jack watched the doctor peel off his infection protection gear. Maybe the specialist had arrived and they could get this show on the road. "He's a good man. Maybe the best one I've ever met."

They waited until the doctor had exited Mac's room and hurried down the hall and out of earshot. "I'm sorry."

That, at least, was something that Jack felt justified getting pissed about. "He's not gone yet."

"That's not what I meant." Wolff pocketed his smartphone. "It's a heavy burden, that responsibility. To protect men who are better than we are."

Jack felt his face smile. He wasn't quite sure why. "Nah. That ain't no big thing. Just wish I was better at it, that's all."

Harlan made a sound of agreement. "It's a fine line to walk. We must do the things they cannot. Situations can get a little grey."

Jack snorted. Loudly. "The only thing gettin' grey is my hair." And he'd gladly give every brown one he had left if it would make that kid's eyes open up. "You do what you need to do, Wolfie. Just don't haul me away until my partner's made up his mind."

The two men were silent for a minute or two. Jack didn't know where Wolff's eyes were and he honestly didn't care. As long as he got to see Mac out of this and get Riley home, Harlan could do whatever the hell he wanted.

"Your service record is impressive," Wolff noted into the silence, his tone no less polite than before. "You've done an admirable job following orders – for the most part."

"Yeah yeah. John Wayne, I got it." That Wolff had dug up his record neither surprised nor worried him. "You don't like the way I do things. You've made that pretty clear."

The other man seemed to weigh his response. "Your actions over the past week certainly seem to deviate from your prior service record. An expert marksman wouldn't have unintentionally made a kill shot, yet Matilda Webber rarely uses you in that capacity."

Considering how deeply Matty and Harlan had had to get into bed on this op, there was no way the deputy director was after her. She didn't need defending, but he did it anyway. "That's not how the Phoenix operates."

"No, but it is how the CIA operates," Wolff countered. "And both of you worked for that organization for a significant period of time."

Jack glared at the deputy director's reflection in the glass.

"Your paths split after an op in Europe, many years ago. Over a situation that, as I understand it, was remarkably similar to this one."

That Wolff would know about Chechnya was a little deeper dive into his service record than most people typically ventured. "Is your plan to keep talkin' until I actually beg you to take me in just so you'll shut up?"

Harlan's reflection had slipped back into looking faintly amused. "Webber trusts you. Implicitly. Despite your lapses in judgement . . . or perhaps because of them. She doesn't seem like a woman who trusts easily." Harlan's eyes cut back towards Mac. "And I can see that that young man means more to you than your own career. More than your health, even your freedom." The older agent then used the glass to look directly at him.

"I don't trust or respect the reckless cowboy I've observed over the past week, but I respect them. Clearly you are capable of learning from your mistakes. Make certain you learn from this one."

As if killing Hatice Iris was a mistake. Or a lapse in judgement. "The only mistake I made," and Jack jabbed at the glass with a finger, "was lettin' my partner outta my sight. And the only thing I'm learnin' is that I might not get a chance to make it right."

"We usually don't," Wolff told him bluntly. "That's the curse of overwatch. We have the benefit of the long view, but ultimately, the ones we protect make their own decisions."

Jack transferred his glare from Harlan's reflection to the man himself. The blatant use of 'we' was really starting to grate his nerves. Like Wolff had any fucking clue what Mac meant to him. Or the position the kid had been put in. "The only decision he made was to _save lives_ , and if you think that was a mistake-"

"I don't," Harlan interrupted quickly. "I respect the choices that he made, even though they led him here. Clearly you feel the same."

Jack couldn't really find anything in that statement to protest, so he turned away with a scowl. Mac had done what he thought he needed to do to save the crew. And if his gun-totin' smart-mouthin' partner had been just twenty minutes faster -

Just twenty damn minutes.

"I wish him – and you – a full and speedy recovery." Jack heard more than saw Harlan fish his phone back out and check the time. "If you'll excuse me."

Jack was too tired and too angry for any of his usual smart-alec quips, and Wolff didn't wait around for him to think of one. About fifteen minutes later he heard the elevator, and turned, expecting to see the doc escorting the specialist. Instead, he found Bozer, bearing a coffee and a sandwich. He wiped the grumpy look off his face and shook his head at Wilt's silent question, and the younger man came up to his side and offered the sandwich.

Not the coffee.

"Matty wants to see you. Prolly not if you're hangry though."

 _I fuckin' bet she does._ Considering Harlan had apparently appeared to offer him some kind of amnesty – which he was pretty sure he didn't need, and damn sure he didn't want – and he'd blown the guy off, she was likely to be not so happy with him. Jack did, however, accept the sandwich.

"Your pal got a phone call and took off. Not sure if he went to get that specialist or what."

Bozer nodded, eyes on Mac, and mechanically sipped his coffee. Jack shoveled the sandwich in without tasting it, but even after five minutes the doc hadn't reappeared, and Jack decided he'd better get his ass-reaming out of the way. "Text our fearless leader when dude shows up."

"I will," Bozer promised, and Jack reluctantly peeled himself away from Mac's room and headed for the stairs. His legs were a little wobbly – too much time standing with his knees locked – and Simmons gave him a nod as he passed by the stairwell door.

"If anything happens, I'll come and get you."

Wolff was nowhere to be seen when Jack came out on the third floor, and he stopped by his own room, just to make sure Riley was still in it. Sure enough, she was asleep, stretched out in the recliner, with a blanket pulled up to her shoulders. It didn't look like she'd moved in hours, or woken up when Bozer had breezed through. He resisted the urge to fuss over her, and instead he eyed the table over his empty bed, where a little cup of pills had been deposited.

He and the nurses had an agreement. As long as he checked in regularly, he was allowed to go upstairs pretty much whenever he wanted. When Mac finally got his act together, Jack knew his own pain was going to hit him like a freight train, but there was just no way he could go into Mac's room with an IV stand, so it was what it was. Getting the damn sling around the stupid smock was hard enough.

He downed the pills with a swig of water from the cup the nurse had helpfully placed next to it, hoped she kept to the agreement that super strong painkillers and sedatives were not appreciated, and quietly slipped out.

Matty's door was partially open, and Patience was in there when Jack stuck his head in. Both women looked up quickly, a sure sign they were talking about something they didn't want overheard.

. . . so they should have just closed the damn door.

"I was just about to send tac to recover you," an acerbic voice observed from the bed, and Jack simpered and stepped off to the side so Keung could leave. The medic openly looked him up and down, then gestured meaningfully at the chair she had just vacated.

"Is Riley sleeping?"

It wasn't the question he'd expected, and it threw him for a second. "Uh, yeah. Thanks for earlier," he added, taking the indicated chair when Matty glared.

"How's she doing?"

That was from Matty, and directed more at him than Patience. The other agent seemed to realize it because she bobbed her head in that peculiar way all Asians had of not bowing but still being unable to completely shake the habit, and then left, closing the door softly behind her.

Jack focused back on Matty. She actually _did_ look better, a little less pale and a little more feisty. "Riles?" At Webber's impatient look, he added "She's okay. She'll come talk when she's ready."

It wasn't hard to guess what was going on in Riley's head. Saito said she was handling things better than he expected, which probably meant she was doing exactly the same thing he was. Bottling it all up, throwing it on the back burner, and waiting to find out how bad things were gonna get. If she hadn't reacted the way she had in the ambulance, hadn't sounded the way she sounded during the convoy ambush, he'd be more worried.

His little girl was hurting, but she wasn't going to accept a damn thing from him until she was good and ready.

Matty frowned. "You may need to push this time."

Jack felt his eyebrows climb. _Or maybe not._ "You know somethin' I don't?"

"No. She's avoiding me too." Matty adjusted herself in the bed a little, still frowning. "You and I will be discharged tomorrow, barring any more misadventures."

Outside of the still very obvious neck brace, Matty was definitely moving around a little better. She had her IV still attached, but it looked like straight saline. She also had her wound drain, just like Mac's, poking out from somewhere behind her and lying in the sheets by her left elbow, but it wasn't terribly full, and the fluid inside seemed clearer.

They might be discharged, but that sure as hell didn't mean they were cleared for duty, either one of 'em.

"You headin' back then?" Carter would send a team to secure her and Folami for transport, they'd probably leave Simmons' team here until Mac –

Until Mac was stable enough to go home. Jack refused to contemplate any other outcome.

"No, I'll stay for another couple of days to smooth things over here."

Which was her roundabout way of bringing them to the point. "No need. Wolff already came by."

Matty's eyes had strayed to her tablet, but flicked back to his immediately. "Really." She almost sounded –

Surprised.

Jack sharpened his attention. "Yeah," he drawled. "I assumed since he didn't haul me off in bracelets you'd bought him a case of Scotch."

"No." She sounded thoughtful. "Your debrief will wait until you come home."

Home.

Jack adjusted the sling a little, trying to avoid banging his right elbow on the chair's armrest. "Speaking of, what's the plan?"

She gave him a neutral look, which made him even more uneasy. "Concerning . . . Mac?"

"Yeah, concerning Mac. What's the next play?" Mac couldn't wait forever. He needed help _now_.

She gave a little sigh, then deliberately set down the tablet. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

His uneasiness tripled. "You don't think you can sell whatever it is to his doctors?" They'd already been pissed off about one non-conventional treatment -

"There's nothing to sell," she said, using her gentle voice. "Dr. Talbot hasn't turned up any new research, not even in pre-clinical trials. Neither have our contacts in big pharma and nanotech."

Jack brushed it off. "Fine. Let's-"

"They can't repeat the procedure, either, not without doing more harm than good."

Jack curbed his growing panic with effort. "Then we find a different procedure. Matty, the rest of his brain is _fine_. He's still in there, and _somebody's_ gotta know how we can help him!"

"Jack –"

"No!" He cut the air with his good hand. "Matty, that kid has saved the world more times than I can count! Don't tell me there ain't a solution – work the fucking phone! I don't give a damn what it costs, you need to make it happen! Mac has done more than enough for his country and it's time to collect!"

"Jack." Her expression was still soft, which told him she wasn't on the defensive - not a good sign. "I feel exactly the same way you do. I would trade anything to save his life. _Anything_. But that miracle . . . it's not out there. It's not out there," she repeated, a little more forcefully, as he tried to argue. "We would have found it. _I_ would have found it."

He stared at her incredulously. " . . . so, what? That's it?" It . . . that couldn't be. "He _needs_ us, Matty! He can't do this all on his own!"

She blinked a few times, rapidly, but that was the only crack. "Jack . . . he wouldn't want this. You _know_ that."

"No. No I don't." Somehow he was on his feet. "I watched that kid build a freakin' _lightsaber_ last year. Technology is improving in leaps and bounds, don't tell me that there's not someone out there with – with nanodes just lookin' for –"

"He's not going to last!" Her voice rose in volume to match his. "Jack, even if that technology was developed next _week_ , he's too sick!" She was sitting straight up in the bed, glaring at him as much as the neck brace would let her. "What do you want us to do? Cryogenically freeze him? Hope that in a year or ten we could thaw him out and somehow heal him?"

" _Yes!_ " He was bellowing, now, he knew it, but somehow he couldn't stop. "Whatever it takes! I will take care of him, I'll –"

"You'll what? When ten years goes by and we still can't save him, you'll what? Wait ten more? Twenty? Fifty? Where do you draw the line!"

He didn't have to say anything. She read it on his face, and then subsided, and slowly leaned back into the pillows. ". . . you never would, Jack. And Mac would _never_ agree to that."

"Matty, I swore they'd never touch him again, and I am _not_ losin' him - not like this. If I have to donate my own brain-whatever, I will. He would never give up on me, Matty. _Never_."

She looked at him with bright eyes. ". . . wouldn't you _want_ him to?"

All the rage rushed out of him, leaving nothing but that big empty place in his chest, that he'd felt since the boat. There wasn't enough anger in the world to fill it; that wasn't what was supposed to be in it. His right arm finally started registering, and he looked down to find his hand fisted, yanking against the sling. Like he was fighting a restraint. It just wanted out.

And maybe, just maybe –

His partner felt the same way.

"Just –" He could barely speak, and he looked back up at her, watching him so sadly. And all his fury came right back.

". . . just make the goddamn calls," he snarled, and then he turned and stalked out of the room.

-M-

The Asian woman leaned up and out of the light, studying her work critically. It looked for a moment as if she was done, but then her eyebrows bunched in an apparent frown, and she muttered to herself in Chinese.

The leprechaun standing beside her blinked his round grey eyes. "Did you say 'quixu'?"

The bunched eyebrows smoothed out. "Yes. It's . . acupoint GB40," Meijer heard the other woman say softly, plucking another tiny gold needle from her dwindling collection. Once selected, she leaned back in and deftly placed the needle, in amongst the other eight bristling out of the patient's right ear.

Dr. O'Beirne – she was going to have to stop mentally calling him 'the leprechaun' before it accidentally came out of her mouth - bounced on the balls of his feet. "Excellent, excellent. That should do it."

Beside her, Henrik rolled the modified EEG system towards the patient's bedside, and the leprec- O'Beirne reached for it enthusiastically. Ines Meijer completely ignored him. Instead, she focused on the Phoenix agent, very gently turning her patient's head so she could better see her work.

"I know this doesn't feel particularly comfortable," Meijer heard her tell him softly, "but we don't have seventeen days to treat you, so I had to be more aggressive. I promise that I will pull them as soon as I can, and then we'll make that ear ache disappear."

Aggressive was an understatement. Ines didn't know how to perform acupuncture herself, but its complimentary effect on Western medicine was well documented – at least in Europe and Asia. It had been performed to infection protocol standards, meaning the agent – and certified acupuncturist - had disinfected both the site and her tools, but Ines had never seen a practitioner dig that deeply into a patient with that fine a gauge of needle.

Under O'Beirne's instruction, she'd stimulated every auditory nerve in the external body of his ear. Besides being probably _quite_ uncomfortable, in a few minutes he should be able to hear her whispering those apologies from the other side of the room – even over the sound of his own ventilator, which should soon grow deafening.

As if the other woman could feel her eyes, Patience Keung glanced up at her. "This is as far as I am comfortable pushing. Any more and I could cause chronic tinnitus."

Ringing ears would be the least of this patient's problems, but Meijer appreciated the information just the same.

"Oh, you've done a fine job. Splendid. To know there is a certified acupuncturist on staff is the icing on the cake! I'll have nothing but kind things to say when I refer patients here."

The Phoenix agent held her gaze, and Meijer didn't change her posture in the slightest. With masks and eye protection, it was already fairly easy to hide your expression, but she knew the little Asian woman could read her loud and clear.

What he doesn't know won't hurt him.

They did actually have two certified acupuncturists affiliated with the hospital, but neither did so as their primary function and neither had been immediately available when the le – O'Beirne had made the request. Given the patient's utter lack of response to stimuli, including pain, he wanted to ensure they had exhausted every avenue to sensitize the patient to sound.

Having spoken with Keung earlier in the day, and determining she wasn't a complete moron, it was only natural to ask her if she wished to treat her fellow agent.

Because that was what Luka Morrow – or possibly 'MacGyver' – clearly had to be.

The strings the patient downstairs had pulled, with Levi, with whoever had synthesized that experimental drug, the physician they'd strong-armed into claiming the research and performing the procedure . . . and the speed with which they'd done it. Couple that with the way the other agents behaved towards Luka, and Nora telling her she'd heard the female agent refer to Luka as 'Mac' . . .

He was no suspect. Wilt Bozer loved 'Mac' like a brother, as did Dalton, and all the other mouth-breathing American security guards endlessly patrolling the hallways. The fact that Agent Keung had hesitated before she'd agreed to treat the patient actually endeared the woman to her more. Perhaps, if this test showed any promise, they could use her acupuncture in tandem with electromyography to determine if the disconnect between his brain and his body was as catastrophic as it appeared.

The EEG machine came up, wirelessly contacting all the sensors they'd placed after they'd pulled Luka – 'Mac' out of the MRI. The machine's display wasn't angled towards her, but she didn't need to circle the patient to know what the preliminary findings would be. Depressed function in all areas of his brain.

Which could be from damage they hadn't yet detected – or simply because his body was completely disconnected, and his brain literally had no information to process. She was hoping it was the latter. If the rest of his brain had function, there would be some reason to continue treating him on the off chance the activating drug worked and Lu – Mac was able to re-map critical neural pathways before the multiple organ failure and sepsis killed him.

Meijer glanced out into the hallway, finding Wilt Bozer standing there, his face a mask as much as hers. Even if this test proved his brain retained some function, L-Mac's prognosis still would not change unless his brain could overcome the damage and build those new pathways. He desperately craved good news, but she had none. Not the kind that would be meaningful to him.

Ines stayed where she was, glancing occasionally at her patient's stats, but otherwise watching O'Beirne putter as he calibrated the machine to the nuances of the brain in front of him. At least she knew him and his specialty. It was far better than letting that ponce of a Parisian in her OR. Noel something or other.

The agent in the room stepped back, clearly to create space, and Meijer took her invitation and circled the patient's bed. O'Beirne had spiked the sensitivity of several of the sensors, trying to get a baseline for activity, and she watched her resident take it all in, his eyes bright behind his goggles.

This was it. Mac would tell them whether they should keep trying, or that he had had enough. Henrik would write papers about this patient either way, but it would certainly help his career – and his confidence – if all his work would, just once, result in a positive outcome.

Meijer turned to Keung. "How long before his nerves should reach peak stimulation?"

The woman's eyebrows folded down a little in thought. "No more than seven or eight minutes."

They'd already nearly met that duration, and the leprechaun tapped a few keys and started capturing his first baseline. "Let's just gather a few minutes of data. Talk amongst yourselves," he added with an animated wave of his hand.

Keung looked at Ines, then her dark eyes slid back to the leprechaun and Henrik.

She said nothing.

Henrik chuckled. "Sorry, doctor, I think your only conversationalist is going to be me. May I ask why you made the changes to C21 and 24 but not 26? Aren't they measuring activity from the same structure in the brain?"

Meijer allowed her colleague to give the explanation – yes, but interference from the frontal lobe would cause inaccuracies at that level of sensitivity – and studied not the wavelengths, but the patient. They'd already gotten those baselines, after all, both when the patient was in an MRI machine, and when he was listening to the drivel the Americans called music. She didn't need to look at barely detectable activity.

If he could speak, what would he say.

There was melanin in his skin, he looked quite pale but he had been tanned. Spent some time in the sun. His hair was a little longer than any of the other agents', as if he was the youngest, and cared about style, about how it looked. There were hundreds of tiny scars on his fingers and palms, particularly around his knuckles and cuticles, showing that he worked with his hands, sometimes doing very fine work, and sometimes much rougher. They most reminded her of a sculptor's hands.

He was relatively tall, and lean. Very fit. In the OR, his heart had looked to be in excellent shape, save for its refusal to beat. There was very little plaque in his blood vessels, telling her he ate a hamburger here and there, but not to excess. His lungs had been clean, no sign of smoking, only of exposure to air pollution. Until MODS had set in, his bloodwork had been excellent. The only wrinkles around his eyes were smile lines.

His injuries were largely defensive. He had been beaten on, but not done much in the way of returning punches.

He was active. He spent time outdoors. He worked on objects, creating or repairing them. He smiled more than he scowled.

This man – whatever his name – would never be satisfied with a body that did not allow him to do those things, or a mind that couldn't.

She glanced at the observation window again, finding Wilt now studying not the doctors, or the machine, but the patient. Only his eyes moved, blinking occasionally, but then he reached up and rubbed his right eye.

He knew those things, about his friend Mac. He was a good choice for power of attorney. Even if his – she must be their boss, by the way they all responded to her – tried to dictate otherwise, she still believed he would do what was best for Mac. Even if it was not what was best for himself.

"Well, let's see what we can see, shall we?"

Meijer focused back on O'Beirne as he started a second recording. They were silent a moment, then the little man withdrew a bright silver whistle from his pocket. He didn't give anyone a bit of warning, he simply raised it to his lips and blew it as hard as he could.

The whistle was specifically pitched lower than a typical traffic cop whistle, with the overtones reaching exponentially higher, and both Henrik and Keung winced. She'd seen this test before, and watched the patient for any visible reaction.

There was none.

A glance at the EEG showed a different picture. He'd heard the sound. The area of his brain related to processing information from his auditory nerves definitely showed that base analysis had occurred. Noise had been detected.

But none of the other sections of his brain showed much besides a halfhearted, temporary bump. Information had been conveyed to several sections of his brain assigned the task of figuring out what it was, and what it meant, but once the information arrived, nothing seemed to happen to it. No additional processing occurred. No startle response. No emotional response. No apparent attempt to react.

O'Beirne studied the data for a moment, then reached into the coat he was wearing behind his smock, and withdrew his smartphone. He scrolled through the samples before selecting the cry of a particularly distraught infant. As before, the patient heard the sound. As before, no addition processing was visible, at least not on the EEG.

So it wasn't a problem of recognition. It wasn't that he couldn't identify the sound, therefore it wasn't processed further. Even a badly damaged brain responded to primitive sounds such as a baby's cry, fire consuming wood, rushing water. His brain appeared to be in far better shape, but –

O'Beirne cycled through some others, including basic tones. Low tones got a slightly more active response, but still nowhere near the activity of a healthy brain. Even as deep as his coma was, the activity was much lower than she would expect.

The doctor finished up his baselines, saving the data under the correct MRN number. "Well, ladies and gentleman, I'll write up my final report, but I don't think I've solved any great mysteries. This technology is limited without embedded sensors, since the infection protocols would not allow it, but even using external sensors, these are very disappointing results."

"Understood. I look forward to receiving your final analysis." He might be able to tease something out of the data related to where the information processing seemed to have broken down, but it was largely moot.

They'd asked MacGyver to tell them if he could hear them, and he had.

Henrik helped O'Beirne pack up his equipment, and at a nod from her, the acupuncturist gently removed all the needles from Mac's ear. On a whim, Ines went back to the refrigerator and withdrew an irrigation syringe. She grabbed a towel as well, then returned to the patient's side. Keung had done what she'd promised, and placed two new needles in the patient's right ear – doubtless to relieve the pain the other needles had caused earlier – and gave Ines an inquiring look.

"These should not affect –"

Meijer simply nodded. They'd have zero effect on a caloric reflex test going on in his left ear.

She opened his eyes, a brilliant blue that was becoming clouded with artificial tear by-products, and she observed his pupils. Fixed. She applied the near-freezing saline to his left ear canal and waited for a reaction.

There was none.

"Thank you for your assistance," Meijer told the agent, who was watching just as closely. "I don't believe your services will be needed again."

No amount of nerve stimulation – painful or otherwise – was going to do anything for a brain that wasn't capable of processing the incoming data. And there was no reason to use acupuncture for pain relief, probably not even in his right ear. Even if he was receiving the information, his brain wasn't doing anything with it.

The Asian woman closed her eyes in apparent acquiescence, but didn't remove her needles. "I understand. I'd like to leave these needles in for at least twenty minutes."

At this point, it wasn't about treating Mac. It was about treating the people around him. "As you wish." She carefully closed the patient's eyes – still fixed and slightly askew, as all deeply unconscious human eyes tended to fall – and turned his head slightly to assist the draining of the cold saline. Then she left the room, peeling off her protective gear as she did so.

Wilt Bozer practically met her at the doorway. "Is there – anything new you learned?"

She deeply liked this young man. Initially he'd seemed as pushy and rude as most Americans, but she had quickly learned it had to do with his heart and the depth of his love for her patient. Therefore she didn't mince words, nor did she escort him to the office where such consultations would typically take place. There was no one else in the hallway except the mouth-breathing security guards, and they were too far to clearly hear her.

"The test confirmed that Luka's brain is receiving auditory stimuli." Before she could go any further, he enthusiastically interrupted.

"So he can hear us?"

Of course he didn't understand. She had barely said more than the first sentence. "While his brain is receiving signals from his auditory nerves, it doesn't recognize them." At Wilt's look of confusion, she tried rephrasing more simply. "He can hear, but the sounds have no meaning to him. He doesn't recognize them in the context of safe or dangerous, startling or soothing. He showed no evidence of comprehension."

She waited until his expression told her that comprehension, while now beyond his friend, was occurring within _his_ brain just fine. "He also failed his second caloric reflex test. We'll wait for Dr. O'Beirne's final analysis, but I don't expect it to contradict our other findings." Just in case he didn't realize what that meant, she continued. "Once it is received, the care team will meet with you to convey our treatment recommendation, and seek your approval for the next step."

Which was crystal clear, even without the final analysis. Luka Morrow – MacGyver – would be diagnosed with brain stem death.

-M-

By the time he made it back to his room, she was awake. And she didn't look particularly happy about it.

"Where have you been?"

Jack smiled and coddled the sling as he maneuvered around the door, letting it close behind him. "Hey." It didn't look like she'd been waiting all that long; her up-do was mostly down, and there was still an indentation on her cheek where the recliner cushion had pressed on it while she'd been sleeping. He couldn't tell if the shadow by that eye was bruising, or just lack of enough food or sleep.

Whatever she'd intended to say next – probably something sarcastic – died on her lips. "Hey . . . you don't look that great, old man."

"Thanks," he drawled, and decided that, given the last hour, he should probably actually sit on his bed for a second before he headed back upstairs. "You get a good nap?"

Riley frowned at him. "Seriously," she added. Then she seemed to go pale. "Did – did something happen –"

"No, nothin' like that." Even if Matty wouldn't tell him at this point, Simmons would have come and gotten him if the specialist was there. "Just waitin' for more tests, that's all." Jack settled painfully onto the mattress, glad he'd left the bed in a half-propped up position. "Haven't see you much," he added lightly, when he could. "How you holdin' up?"

Riley looked torn between continuing to berate him for looking like ass, or defending herself and pretending everything was fine. She settled for a cross between the two. "I feel like you look."

So not great. Jack held her eyes until she dropped them to the blanket she was picking apart. "Well, I _am_ ruggedly handsome, but Riles, you got me beat in the looks department hands down. Hey," he added, when she didn't even crack a smile. "Talk to me."

She hesitated. "I, uh . . . just wanted to check in. See how you were."

Jack gave her a cockeyed grin. "That was convincin'."

This time she _did_ smile. "Thanks for siccing the world's most annoying nanny on me, by the way."

Jack blew out his cheeks, and relaxed a little into the pillows. "Yeah, Si can be a little much. If you're givin' him half the trouble you give me, though, I think you're even."

Oddly, she didn't respond. She just sighed, and slouched back in the chair. ". . . I'm not ready," she finally said, then bit her lip. "To talk about any of this."

"Okay," he said agreeably, and made a show of getting more comfortable. "I'll be here when you are."

"I know," she said faintly. ". . . but he won't."

He glanced back at her, fighting a wince at the pain it brought. ". . . y'mean Mac?"

She nodded mutely.

"Riles . . ."

 _But that miracle . . . it's not out there. It's not out there._

He swallowed his anger and shoved Matty's words forcefully out of his head. "Listen to me. Whatever happens, you take your time, and you go an' hash it out when you're ready. Hell, I talk to my dad all the damn time. An' I know he hears me."

Even if – God forbid – the worst case scenario did somehow happen, Jack was pretty damn sure his boy would improvise his way out of the underworld straight back to them. Even if they couldn't see him, he'd be there.

Riley blinked back tears. "Jack, I can't – I can't. I feel so responsible, I know it's not my fault," she rushed on, and hastily wiped her eyes, "but I was _right there,_ and he pushed me away. He didn't have to _do_ that."

"Yeah he did," Jack told her, then sighed. "If that's what's eatin' ya, I think I can shed a little light."

She gave him a look, half glaring, half pleading, and he offered her a wan smile. "Same reason you didn't come to us for help when those asswipes grabbed your mom, made you hack the NSA again, Ri. There are certain messes that we all feel personally responsible for. The one you let get away."

She opened her mouth to retort, and he held up his good hand. "Hear me out. Imagine the one _you_ let get away hurts someone you care about. Or worse. You're gonna put a stop to that, right? If Clarice had gotten outta that clearing, slipped away from you, then popped back up on your radar – if there was a chance she could take Matty out, take _me_ out – you can't tell me you wouldn't kick me to the curb. Hell, I can barely text. You'd throw down the gauntlet to get her attention, get her somewhere where you could kick her ass. Keep her attention off the rest of us. That's all there is to it, Riles."

She wasn't having it. "But it was a _mistake_ -"

"You're here, aintcha? Not lyin' soggy on the bottom of the river? That's a hands down win in his book."

The look she gave him almost broke his heart. "What about _my_ book?!"

"Doesn't matter. Riley, Mac would never forgive himself if somethin' happened to you because of somethin' he did. The second he let Aydin outta that courthouse, right or wrong, he took responsibility for everything that asshole even _thought_ about from that moment on. Now, you don't gotta agree with him," and honestly, he wasn't sure _he_ did right now, "and it's not about him thinkin' any less of you. Mac's one of your biggest fans. He knows just how badass you are. But this wasn't a mission you signed up for. The way Mac sees it, Aydin was _his_ mess. So if you're wonderin' why . . . that's why."

The why, with Mac, was pretty easy. For all that big ginormous brain, there was that big ginormous heart, and it was a pretty damn simple one. Mac did what he thought he needed to do, and he hoped it would work out because it had so many times before. Because on those rare occasions when he was truly in over his head, Jack Dalton always swooped in at the last second.

And this time, Jack Dalton just didn't quite make it.

And he knew Mac would never blame him for that. Probably hadn't even crossed his mind – hell, Mac was probably sittin' there in his own blood blamin' _himself_ for gettin' stabbed, it woulda never occurred to him to be angry that his partner had let him down. It wouldn't occur to him that his partner had let him down at all.

No, Mac thought he was the one doin' the lettin' down.

And that hurt worst of all.

"Promise me . . . you're never going to do this."

A laugh bubbled out of his chest, and Jack scrubbed his face. "Oh, baby, I can't promise you that. I made a lotta messes in this life. If one of 'em comes knockin' . . ."

"Then I'm signing up for that. Right now." Her voice was trembling with fury, and he looked back up at her, startled. She was glaring daggers through her tears. "Don't you _ever_ do this to me, Jack. I would rather be lying next to him in a coma than sitting here wondering if I could have saved him."

He almost got up and went over to her. "Don't say that, Ri. Losin' either one of you is . . ." God, the idea of losing _both_ of them, that it could happen –

Their line of work, it could happen. He just always thought, if it did, they'd all be together.

And he'd be first.

"And how the fuck do you think it's different for me?!" she demanded. "Everyone thinks this lone wolf hero shit is noble, and selfless, but it's not! It wasn't when I did it, and it isn't now!"

He grimaced, then started to climb out of the bed just in time for the door to open. It was Bozer, and his face –

But then it shifted sluggishly into chagrin. "Oh, uh . . . sorry, I thought-"

Jack went ahead and finished getting up. "You're fine. That specialist finally show?"

The lost look started edging back onto Bozer's ashen face, and Jack's heart dropped into his stomach.

"Uh . . . yeah, he just left." Bozer's voice wavered, and his attention was drawn to Riley. "He, uh –"

" _Bozer_! Didn't I tell you to come let me know!?" What if they'd found something, something Melissa or Matty could use, something they didn't realize was important -

The other man physically flinched as Jack bore down on him. "I-I texted Matty, she said you were takin' care of somethin'-"

"God _dammit_!" He made an impatient shooing gesture, trying to get Wilt out of the door. Matty. It was Matty. Which Boze'd probably relayed to Simmons, which was why the other agent hadn't come down to get him –

"Hey!" Riley called indignantly, somewhere behind him. "Jack-"

"He's already done," Wilt tried, giving ground but sounding a little more like himself. "Before you go up, you should know –"

Jack barely managed to stop himself from running right over Bozer. "Know what?" he snapped. "What I shoulda known an hour ago!?"

"Jack, enough!" Riley pulled the door away from Wilt, so that it was fully open, and Bozer hesitated in the threshold.

"He, uh," Wilt cleared his throat, his eyes on the lever of the door. "He confirmed that Mac can hear us."

 _Finally_. A piece of good news. God knew they needed to hear it.

"That's great!" Riley was reading his mind. ". . . so . . . why don't you sound happy . . .?"

Wilt hesitated again, then made as if to come into the room, and Jack reluctantly backed up. If Mac could hear them, leaving him alone in the room seemed like a dick move –

And Boze would know that.

Jack swallowed his impatience with effort. "Boze. What's wrong."

"He can hear us but –" His voice cracked a little, and Wilt swallowed, then started again, a little stronger. "But he doesn't understand us. It's – it's just noise to him. He doesn't recognize the words. Doesn't know who we are."

Jack kind of knew how he felt, because those words made no sense to _him_. "What do you mean – how could they know that –" How could anyone _possibly_ know that?

"They were . . . watchin' his brain, while they talked. They blew this kind of whistle, played a bunch of sounds. Mac didn't react to any of it. He heard it, but . . . it didn't mean anything to him."

A look of confusion crossed Bozer's face, then, and Riley seemed to come out of nowhere, guiding Wilt to a chair. He dropped into it gracelessly, and Jack finally recognized the look on his face.

Shock. Bozer was in shock.

"The final report won't be back til morning. Then . . . they're gonna call it."

Call it. Like a code. Like he died on the table.

Jack stared at him, speechless, and Bozer leaned forward onto his knees and put his head in his hands.

No. No, this wasn't the way this was gonna go. "Look. Listen to me, Boze. There's no way some doc with some fancy machine could possibly set off one air horn and then say that Mac can't understand us." He caught Riley giving him a warning glare, and deliberately gentled his tone. "Just - take a minute, and tell me exactly what he said."

"He didn't." It was muffled, spoken into his hands. "Meijer did. Came right out and told me."

Jack definitely had a love hate thing going with her. "So we get a second opinion." He dropped his good hand onto Wilt's shoulder, kicking himself when the kid flinched under his touch.

"Listen to me. This ain't over, you hear me? Matty's still doing her thing. So are the Docs Talbot. We're gonna find a way." Tomorrow morning was a good sixteen hours away.

They had sixteen hours.

-M-

I am doing the very best that I can to wrap this up next chapter, which I will post tomorrow (or possibly really, really early on Thursday.) After that, I am afraid I will be incommunicado, both for fiction and PMs, until at least the middle of December. I absolutely do not want to leave you hanging. Wish me luck!

As for what just happened – Jack and Harlan had a conversation about fucking up, and how Jack shouldn't do it anymore. Matty then piled on the bad news, telling him they had no more leads on a treatment. Dr. Meijer and Patience confirmed that Mac could hear – but it didn't mean anything to him. Worse, he still has no reflexes. Jack and Riley started to get to the heart of what was bothering her, only to have Bozer arrive and give them the news.


	22. Chapter 22

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning** : Major tearjerk warning. And do read til the very end. I _promise_ you it'll be worth it.

Note: This chapter refers to another I wrote called Ground Rules. You don't need to read it to understand the reference, but if you'd like to know what Jack and Bozer are talking about, please be aware it's out there. This chapter also refers to Turkey Day: All the Trimmings, the trimming titled Cherry Slurpee, which details little Mac's very first trip to the beach. It's also not necessary, but it will give some context to Mac's experience.

-M-

It was just after seven am, local time, when she finished belting the smock with another smock. Once it was high enough that she wasn't going to trip over the damn thing, she glared at the observation camera in the corner, then adjusted her mask and carefully crossed the wide tile floor. Her elbow still felt numb, which she supposed she only noticed because everything else hurt.

Some places more than others.

Someone of larger stature may have found it difficult to maneuver around all the equipment, but she found a ready access point on Mac's right, and was reaching for his hand when her phone, still jammed in her slacks pocket, started vibrating again.

This time she ignored it.

His hands were so much bigger than hers. Everyone's were, to an extent, but these hands had held hearts, bombs, nuclear codes, and nerve gas. It was easy to manage those things from a distance, using hands bigger than her own. But now, holding one, she could see all the tiny scars and callouses, that tough exterior over something so gentle.

That's what it was. Angus MacGyver was gentle.

"I'm sorry I haven't been to visit," she said, raising her voice a little to be heard over the ventilator. She was never going to believe that a machine could tell you whether or not someone could understand you. That was too much science fiction, even for her. "I'll be discharged later today, in fact. I just . . . wanted a few minutes of your time."

He had nowhere else to be.

She smiled at him, and hoped he could hear it in her voice. "Apologies don't come easy to me, Mac. They never have. I want you to know that. And that I am so, so sorry that I've let you down." Her hands were quite small in comparison with his. She'd used them to great effect, but even she couldn't just whip up a miracle out of nothing.

That was his talent.

"I'm also sorry that I doubted you. I called what it is that you do luck, and that was wrong." What happened on that ship wasn't proof of his luck running out. It was exactly the opposite.

"You are one of the best operatives I have ever met. More importantly, you're one of the best _men_ I have ever met. You've done so much, for DXS, for Phoenix . . . you've truly worked miracles."

 _And I will always regret that I couldn't work one for you._

She laid his limp hand back on the bed, arranging his fingers just so. "I didn't recognize it then, but I was the lucky one. I want you to know that you've made your country, your friends, your boss . . . and your father . . . _so_ proud." Her voice threatened to tremble, and she leaned hard on her training. "And your family is going to miss you more than you can ever know."

His bed was higher off the ground than was comfortable for her to reach, to make sure his nurses and care team didn't put out their backs treating him, so she punched the down button until she could reach his face. The bed hissed smoothly downwards, and when it stopped, his head rolled towards her, just a fraction.

Matty's smile grew wider.

"Not to make you feel guilty or anything . . . but you're breaking my heart," she confessed softly, then surreptitiously ran a finger under her eye. "I know you're not a spiritual man, but I have it on good authority that you're shortly going to find yourself in high demand. If anyone needs a guardian angel, it's Jack."

How she was going to keep them together after this, she didn't know. She wasn't even sure she should.

And she was damn sure she wasn't supposed to do what she intended to do next, but there was no point in having as much power as she did if she couldn't use it.

So Matty reached up and unhooked the mask from her nose and mouth, and then leaned forward and smoothed the hair away from his temple. "You'll never be far from my thoughts, Blondie," she assured him, and then she placed a soft kiss on his forehead.

It was easy to imagine the look he would have given her, if he knew, and it made her smile – a real one this time. "Relax. I didn't leave any lipstick marks," she chided drily. "Not like the handprint I left on your partner . . . that's a story I should make sure he tells you."

At this point Jack probably would. They both knew Mac could keep a secret.

"I'll see you again a little later," she promised him, then leaned back and replaced the mask, setting the bed back to its previous height. His head jostled again, just a little, when the bed came to a stop, but none of the machines started screaming, and Matty gave his hand one last squeeze, and then turned around and walked away.

Getting the smocks off was nearly as annoying as putting them on, and Matty winced as every motion pulled at her back, and then the damn thing stuck to the Velcro on her neck brace. By the time she wrestled herself out of the gear – which had been, largely, pointless – she was more than a little irritated, and she hung onto that feeling to help her dry her eyes and school her expression before she marched out of his room, and out into the hallway.

Ramirez was at one end, and Saito was on the other. They'd asked Harlan's folks to give them the floor, and he'd acquiesced immediately. A doctor, she thought the woman's name was Nora, was just stepping into the hallway from the elevator lobby, and Matty gave the woman a look, rather than a nod – the neck brace didn't allow for that – and headed for the same destination, a small consulting office off the main hallway.

The doctor waited for her, politely holding open the door. "You look better today, Ms. Webber."

"I'm feeling better, thank you," she responded equally politely, and then she found herself entering a large, lavish office. Couches lined the walls near the back. No one was using them.

The rest of the care team had gathered near the desk, while her team was lingering near one of the walls. Jack was propping up a bookcase, and Riley was leaning on one of the couch's armrests. Bozer was sort of standing in the middle of the room, looking terribly lost. His hands were clasped in front of him, pretending to hold it together, but from her position she could see that he was gripping them rigidly tightly.

Trying to stop them from shaking.

She took a position beside him, just far enough away that she could look up at him even with the brace. "Bozer."

He gave her about a quarter of his attention, which frankly impressed her. Matty offered him a reassuring smile. "We're right here with you, and we're going to get through this, no matter what they tell you. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am," he said automatically, but then some of the barely concealed panic gave way to a flash of gratitude. ". . . thank you."

She reached up and patted his clenched hands. "Anytime."

At the stroke of 7:15, the door opened, admitting the hospital administrator and Dr. Meijer. Despite the hour, both looked relatively put together, and both of them surveyed the room, stopping when they found Bozer. Then Van Dijk headed for the desk.

He was carrying a padfolio.

Matty already knew what was in it. Their feed into the hospital had shown him printing them out, along with Luka's name, social security number, date of birth. She hadn't told Wilt. She hadn't needed to. He just watched them, almost woodenly, as the administrator and the head of neurology took their places among the care team.

But it was Dr. Levi Van Dijk who had the honors, and took the actual seat behind the desk. He gave Wilt a smile, and indicated one of the two leather chairs sitting across from him. "If you would?"

"I'll stand, thanks," Wilt replied, his voice tight.

Oddly, Levi's smile became more genuine. "Yes. I should have remembered. That's perfectly fine. I'm going to ask Dr. Meijer to give you an update and convey the care team's diagnosis, and after that you and I will talk about options."

Wilt didn't flinch, but it took him a second to brace himself, and drag his eyes up to look at Dr. Meijer. She wasn't smiling.

"We've received Dr. O'Beirne's final report. It was very similar to his preliminary findings, though there are some small discrepancies."

"Such as?" Jack's voice was hoarse and sharp, like the crack of a whip.

The neurologist didn't look at him, but she did answer. Matty had a feeling she was going to explain that comment anyway. "Because we were unable to embed the sensors, the level of sensitivity necessary for the detections caused some phantom readings. Even with the most optimistic interpretation, they don't change the patient's prognosis. He continues to show below average brain activity for his injury."

That might have been the very first time she had ever heard Mac's brain described as below average, and she waited for Jack's acerbic wit.

It didn't come.

"He failed a third consecutive caloric reflex test at five o'clock local time. Based on all diagnostic testing, we're diagnosing him with brain stem death. The condition is terminal."

Bozer didn't even blink. His eyes slid back to Dr. Van Dijk. "You said there were options?"

The administrator's expression was grave. "In the United States, brain stem death does not necessarily warrant cessation of treatment and withdrawal of supportive care. He is a US citizen, and you as the power of attorney can have him transferred to a facility in the United States for continued treatment."

Van Dijk paused, clearly waiting for something, and Wilt just stared at him. When he finally realized they were waiting on him, he straightened a little. "What would continued treatment look like?"

The doctor who had held the door open for Matty – Nora Peterson – cleared her throat. "While I can't speak for his physicians in the US, standard treatment would be continuation of aggressive antibiotic therapy to treat sepsis and infection, dialysis to compensate for the liver and kidney failure, and targeted decontamination of his upper and lower GI tract to attempt to limit any further bacteria entering his bloodstream as that system also fails."

Bozer shifted his weight uncertainly, and Meijer gave a small, impatient sigh. "His white count has fallen below one thousand. It means his immune system has almost completely shut down. There is no antibiotic treatment aggressive enough to stop sepsis without at least a partially intact immune response. He'll be consumed by infection from the inside out, until his heart muscles become too damaged to respond to electrical stimulation. Optimistically speaking, he could maybe last another week. Less, if he has to suffer a transatlantic flight."

Bozer seemed to think about that for a minute. "You said options. Plural."

Van Dijk nodded solemnly. "Here in the Netherlands, a diagnosis of brain stem death is grounds for the cessation of supportive care. We would continue to treat for the patient's comfort, including pain and anxiety management, but all life-sustaining support would be withdrawn. We would allow his underlying conditions to progress to their natural conclusion."

Watch Mac literally waste away, or cut to the chase and pull the plug.

Bozer seemed to mull that over for a moment. "Is there a door number three?"

If they realized that was a joke, no one smiled. His care team, Peterson, Meijer, even Tueling, looked profession but somber. Each one was giving three or four indicators of distress.

None of them wanted to lose him.

"I'm afraid there is not," Van Dijk confirmed. Then he reached for the padfolio. "I have both the transfer request, and the withdrawal of treatment order. As the patient's power of attorney, it is entirely your decision which you choose to sign. You would typically have forty-eight hours to make that decision, but given Luka's current condition, the longer you delay a transfer request, the lower his chances of surviving the transfer."

"You just told me he's not surviving now," Wilt said dully. "Make up your mind."

Matty glanced over at him, but his expression hadn't significantly shifted. Only his hands gave him away, tucked in a way that was supposed to appear casual in the pockets of his jeans.

"I know this is very difficult news," the administrator told him, his sympathy sincere. "I will leave these documents here. And Luka's care team is happy to answer any questions you may have."

The muscles of his jaw slid beneath his skin of his cheek, and then Bozer turned on his heels and walked away.

He didn't stop when he hit the back of the room, and she didn't miss the surprised look on everyone's faces when he simply breezed out the door.

For a moment, no one said anything, and Matty smoothed her features and started after him. Jack gave her a shake of his head, then pushed himself off the bookcase.

And Matty almost stopped him.

Almost.

They were family. They were all the family they had. As far as she knew, Jack had spent most of the last sixteen hours with Mac, making his own phone calls. With no more luck than she'd had. He wasn't accepting this. And she hated to think of the advice he would give Bozer, coming from that place of denial.

But they were all the family they had. Much as she might want to, she couldn't stop this conversation, whether it happened now or a month from now wouldn't make much difference. This was something they had to do on their own.

-M-

Bozer barely seemed to realize he'd been followed. The moment he hit he main hallway he turned on autopilot for Mac's window, but after a few steps it occurred to him where he was headed, because he stopped dead in his tracks.

His hands were still in his pockets.

Jack stopped a few yards behind him, announcing his presence by sighing and shifting the sling a little. Bozer didn't move a muscle.

"Jack, I can't do this right now."

And he deserved that. That, and a lot more. "Easy, dude. I'm not here to fight with ya. I just came to see how you are."

"How I am?" His voice was eerily calm, almost hollow. "How I am? I get to decide if my best friend dies of blood poisonin' . . . or if I should just kill him right now. That's how I am."

"Hey," Jack started sharply, before he caught himself. Bozer didn't react. "You didn't stick a knife in his chest. What's happenin' to him, that's all Aydin. None of that's on you."

"This is," Bozer contradicted quietly.

Jack heaved a short sigh, as much as his ribs would allow, then scrubbed a hand through his hair. "I been there," he finally started, slowly. Not quite sure if this was the right place to go with Boze. "Hadda make a decision to pull a man out of a crashed helo and let him bleed to death, or hand over the weapon he asked me for instead."

The young man in front of him shook his head. ". . . and how is that the same? That guy was your best friend?" He subsided a little. "It's not like Mac's gonna reach over and unplug himself."

"No, he's not," Jack agreed. "But if he could . . . do you think he would?"

Bozer's hands started squirming in his pockets. ". . . I don't wanna think," he choked out.

Jack hesitated, then came a few steps closer, until he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Boze. The kid didn't look at him, just stared straight ahead, like he was watching the door at the far end, waiting for someone to walk through it and tell him it was gonna be okay.

Even though he knew it wasn't.

"I know you don't, buddy. I know. And you're right," he added after a moment. "That guy wasn't my best friend. Hell, I didn't even know his name. Never seen him before that day." Best damn pilot he'd ever ridden with, though. Hands down. "Law says I shoulda pulled him outta the wreckage, and given him first aid we both knew wasn't gonna do nothin'. He told me not to, that he didn't want the pain."

"They said he's not in any pain." It sounded almost defensive. "Even Agent Keung said so."

Jack blinked, momentarily thrown. He wasn't aware Boze and Pait had had any conversations about Mac.

"And Mac's not bleedin' to death." Bozer shifted and Jack thought he might keep walking, but he stopped himself at the last moment.

He had nowhere to go. In front of him was Mac, and behind him were the docs. Jack knew exactly how he felt.

"If the docs Talbot come up with something in a day or two, or three . . . an' I –" He cut himself off. "But if the docs are wrong, an' Mac knows what's goin' on . . ."

"Mac gave you power of attorney for a reason," Jack told him quietly. "He didn't give it to me for that same reason. He loves you, man. Knows where your heart is. An' he knows you'll always do what's best for him. You don't care about what he's owed, what other people should be doin' and aren't. You just care that he's happy."

Boze swallowed – hard. "We're supposed to get married, have kids, go on playdates where his kids set my kids' treehouse on fire. Life stuff, y'know?"

Jack grinned broadly at the mental image. "Yeah, Boze. I know."

"But this . . ." He trailed off helplessly.

Jack watched Agent Ramirez decide he could watch the hall from inside the stairwell, and surreptitiously disappear himself.

"He's not gonna live long enough for the lab rats to figure out how to save him." It was the only thing he'd learned from ten plus hours of calling in every favor he could. "An' I don't care what that quack said, he can hear us. He knows we're around. And if he does, if he knows what you're goin' through . . . he'd do everything in his power to make it stop."

Mac would never have put Bozer in this position if he could help it. Never.

"But he doesn't have that power, Boze. He gave it to his best friend. The guy who waded into a fight and pulled him out way back when he was just a lost little kid. The guy who knows him better than anyone in the world. Anyone. Includin' me."

Wilt pressed his lips together. ". . . so what did you do?"

"Me? Y'mean with that pilot?" He considered his next words carefully. "Doesn't matter. Like you said, this ain't that. But I'll tell you the worst part." He waited until Bozer actually glanced at him, and he held the other man's gaze. "The worst part was knowin' a nineteen year old EOD tech was watchin' me make that decision."

Bozer actually shifted a little in surprise. "Mac was there?"

Jack gave him a grim smile. "Oh yeah. And it was not his best day, lemme tell you. He damn near didn't walk away from that one."

Not that long after that crash, they'd been carrying him literally by the seat of his pants. And he'd been on a pretty tight clock. That time, he _had_ been bleedin' to death. From a tiny little rip in a blood vessel in his chest. Aydin's knife had prolly only been a little to the right of it.

God, the things Mac had walked away from. Wars. Cartels. Professional hitmen. A damn _nuke_. And it wasn't even the knife that was killin' him. It was his own damn brain.

"When we finally got outta there, I went to see him in the field hospital, in Kabul, and he shut me down. Hard. I thought we were done for good." Which prolly kinda told Boze which way he'd gone with the pilot. "But we were still assigned together. Wasn't too much longer we ended up in the same humvee for a couple hours, and we had it out."

Jack waited a beat, to see if he'd pulled Bozer out of his head, and was rewarded with an impatient huff.

"So what happened?"

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Here we are," he said unnecessarily. "You judge a man by his actions. I had an impossible choice. There was no right answer. But Mac knew _why_ I did what I did. He knew what kinda place it was comin' from. Even better, he'd had a little chunka time, by then, to figure out exactly what kinda man I was. What kinda heart I had."

Knowing it would make or break the whole thing, Jack reached over and tapped Wilt's chest. "We all know what kinda heart you got in there. Mac best of all. You need to do what it's tellin' you. None of us can make this decision for you, bruh. It's gotta be you."

Bozer's chin started to tremble.

"And whatever that is . . . we're family. You hearin' me?" He dropped his chin and fixed Wilt with a serious look. "No one's gonna turn their back on you when all you're doin' is what our boy asked you to."

He lost Boze's eyes, then – they flicked back towards the observation window. For a long moment, he didn't say anything at all.

" . . . it's not fair."

No. It wasn't.

"An' it's not _right_ ," he continued, his voice wavering about half an octave.

"No," Jack agreed. "It's not."

"He's . . . he's my _best friend_ . . ." He stared at the window, pleadingly, and Jack reached over and pulled him into half a headlock.

"C'mere, man." In seconds he was supporting an armful of sobbing, brokenhearted Wilt Bozer. Damn sling trapped his right arm between them but Jack didn't let up for a second. He put his hand on the back of Bozer's head and hugged him fiercely.

-M-

"And I'm telling you, it's incorrect." Liz, who was one bench over, glanced up, and Jill ducked her head apologetically and lowered her voice. "The passenger manifest has too many people on it."

Honestly, how could tier two analysts screw up basic logistics?

Jill wearily toggled over to the rest of the specs. There was the extra flight crew to relieve the ones who'd been stuck on the tarmac in Amsterdam for over a week. And Simmons and his team were pulling out and keeping security for Matty, but even so, the passenger manifest was simply too high.

The only modification to the on-site plane was changing one of the passenger bays to medical. And that was for Agent Folami, who was still on his back because of the hip. There was no way the number sixteen could be correct.

Either someone had forgotten to send in the new tac team, to secure the hospital, or they'd forgotten to tell her about the whole other _aircraft_ that would be used to transfer Mac.

They wouldn't be pulling out of the hospital without him.

Jill toggled back to the hospital feeds, checking for herself – for about the eightieth time – and she found Mac still tucked safe in his bed in intensive care. Last she had checked, there had been no change to his condition.

They wouldn't just leave him there without a security team. And there was no way Jack was going to fly out without him.

. . . unless Matty wasn't asking Jack, she was telling him . . . ?

Jill pulled off her headset with a frown, then fished in the pocket of her labcoat for her phone. She texted Riley.

 **Setting up logistics. How many of you are staying?**

While she was waiting, she tweaked the cargo list and fuel calculations, and confirmed a take-off time about five hours out. It would put them back in LA around noon tomorrow. She started arranging ground transportation before it occurred to her she didn't have to bother Riley at all.

She accessed the hospital's network, looking for discharge paperwork. It would have discharge summaries for everyone, including Matty, Jack, Leo, John, and Mac, and she could just do the corrections from that.

. . . only Mac didn't have a discharge summary. Luka Morrow wasn't on the discharge list.

Jill frowned, then dug into his medical records. Four new documents - three were test results, and the last was a form, with a looping signature at the bottom. Even though the image was small, she recognized it.

Bozer's signature.

Jill clicked on the thumbnail, and the title of the PDF document leapt off the screen.

ALLOW NATURAL DEATH / WITHHOLDING AND / OR WITHDRAWING LIFE-SUSTAINING TREATMENT / NON-BENEFICIAL CARE AND RESUSCITATION ORDER

It wasn't a standard DNR – Do Not Resuscitate - and she clicked back to his medical record, still not believing what she was reading.

DIAGNOSIS: BRAIN STEM DEATH

Jill just blinked at the monitor. Then she flipped back to the PDF. Bozer's initials and the attending physician's right next to one another. The date – tomorrow's date, which was today's date in Amsterdam – and a time.

Nine o'clock in the morning.

She glanced up at the wall, where twelve clocks hung, each one keyed to a time that was specific to an active op. Their local time was almost 11:30 at night. The one labeled 'Amsterdam' said 8:27 am.

The order was for thirty-three minutes from now.

In thirty-three minutes, they were going to cease treating MacGyver. They were going to turn off all the machines. And he would die.

In the cargo list, she'd seen the 'HR' – human remains – code, but had assumed they'd be transporting Aydin's body. Now that she thought about it, the dimensions and weight of the bag hadn't made much sense, given how large Aydin had been, and how quickly the cockpit fire had been put out.

That HR crate wasn't for Aydin.

It was for Mac.

Jill covered her mouth when it finally caught up to her brain, and then she pushed herself away from the bench, scooped up her phone, and proceeded out of the lab, before she could make any kind of hiccup, any kind of sound. If even she hadn't been told, clearly they didn't intend to tell anyone. She wasn't supposed to know until they were airborne, or until they landed. Maybe not until Director Webber actually returned to the building, and could address the staff herself.

He didn't make it.

The halls were way busier than they had any business being, and Jill could barely see, her hand was causing her exhales to fog up her glasses. She finally ducked into the women's restroom, not even checking to see if it was empty before she turned the lock, then put her back to the door, and let herself cry.

He didn't make it.

She wasn't sure how long she stood there, crying, clutching her phone without having the faintest idea what to text. And she wasn't just crying for Mac. She was crying for Jack, for Riley, for Bozer – the sweetest, most innocent guy she knew. That he'd had to do that, had to sign that piece of paper –

The door bucked against her back, and Jill gave a startled little shriek and flinched away from it, whirling around to find it slowly pushing itself open.

"Miss Morgan?"

It was a masculine voice. Familiar.

Carter.

She sniffled, then pulled off her glasses to quickly wipe her eyes, and once she got her glasses back on, she saw the man's strawberry blonde hair peeking around the door, heard keys jingling on a ring. "You okay?"

Of course. As soon as she'd made a huge scene in the hallway and then locked the door, someone had called security.

"I'm fine," she said in a watery voice, and the rest of Joshua Carter entered the bathroom. One look at his face told her he knew exactly why she was there, and what had upset her. He offered her a pained smile, and let the door swing shut behind him.

"You heard." It wasn't a question.

She nodded, then took the deepest breath she could, and squared her shoulders. "I . . . I just wasn't expecting . . . I- I mean, I guess I _was_ expecting that, in a way, I saw the test results and I knew what it looked like, but . . . I was h-hoping –"

Carter leaned against the wall beside the door. "Me too," he told her. "He was a good agent. And a great guy."

"Is a great guy," she corrected thickly, glancing at her phone. Riley hadn't responded, and the clock told her it was 11:34. "They . . . it'll happen at midnight, here."

"The witching hour," Carter murmured. "That's fitting."

She blinked at him, not following, and he shrugged. "Think about it. If he'd been born about three hundred years ago, they'd've thought he was a witch for sure."

"That's . . . a super weird perspective . . ."

"I know. I'm just trying to get you to stop crying," he admitted, and she laughed a little despite herself.

"Mission accomplished," he added, then reached over and casually grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser. "Besides, if he'd been born three hundred years ago, we'd have flying cars and teleporters by now."

She accepted the towel, a little embarrassed, and Carter gave her plenty of time to mop up. "The Docs Talbot are the only other people in the know. I was headed down there when Hurricane Morgan tore through. Walk with me."

Hiding in medical sounded like a way better idea than going back to the lab and pretending to work. But then she shook her head. "The logistics –"

"Can fucking wait," he told her sternly. "And you're not driving home like this. I'm not takin' no for an answer."

She glanced at the mirror – which was a terrible idea, she and her sister both had horrible crying faces – and wiped her nose before wadding up the towel. Carter opened the door a crack, peeking out, and by the time she'd done what she could he'd deemed the hallway clear. She still felt self-conscious, keeping her head down as he led her to the stairs, rather than the elevator.

Medical was much quieter than the analyst floor. Mostly empty, in fact; the ops that hadn't been outright canceled when Myrrh went into effect had been very carefully monitored, and currently the only injured agents that she knew of were in Europe. The lighting was dim; motion sensors kicked on a few of them as Carter took her towards the physician offices, and she was startled by a loud, mid-ranged pop.

They looped the corner, and found Melissa and Timothy in their office. Melissa was seated on the couch, a box of tissues in her lap, and her husband was letting the bottle of champagne he was holding spit up a little over a trashcan.

Jill stopped dead in her tracks. Carter, however, didn't seem surprised in the least. He simply nodded to Timothy, then turned and scanned the room.

Dr. Talbot, however, did look surprised. "Uh, hello, Ms. Morgan. I . . . wasn't expecting you . . ."

She looked between the doctor and the bottle a moment, not quite understanding, and Timothy followed her gaze.

"We're just –"

"She knows," Carter said distractedly, then gestured at a neat row of Kimble glassware. "These clean?"

The doctor glanced between the two of them. "Yes, but we're not going to use them," he answered Carter first, then turned back to Jill, who couldn't quite get her feet to move. "You're welcome to stay."

"To stay and . . . celebrate?" she asked stiltedly. It didn't seem like they had much reason to throw a party, seeing as their drug hadn't worked –

Oddly, the male half of the Drs. Talbot gave her a warm smile. "Yes," he said. "I can't imagine MacGyver would want tears and regrets. If anyone deserves a celebration of life, it's him."

Behind him, his wife blew her nose.

Jill was far more comfortable with Melissa's reaction, and remained rooted at the door while Carter augmented the collection of glasses on the desk. It was a motley assortment, including a Frosty the Snowman cocoa mug, a pint glass that said "World's Okayest Doctor," a regular mug that looked like a prescription bottle for 'coffee', and a 200 ml erlenmeyer flask.

Carter regarded the mismatching drinkware a moment. "Not exactly up to toasting standards. Want me to see what I can find upstairs?"

"Are you kidding?" Timothy clapped the taller man on the back. "This is for Mac. The more mismatched the better." The doctor wasted no time in adding the champagne. "I've got another bottle," he assured Carter, when the tall man raised an eyebrow at the generous pours.

"You have parties down here often?" Josh inquired politely, and Tim shot the other man a droll look.

"Not as much as we used to. Most of the nurses have passed all their critical certs, but we always keep a bottle or two on hand for the odd baby announcement or particularly tricky case."

Once he was done emptying the first bottle into the four glasses, he held the flask out towards her, and Jill entered the room and took it automatically. She would have immediately put it down, but there wasn't any spare space on the desk he was using. "I –"

"Can you bring this to my wife?" The Frosty mug was held out, and she took it with her other hand, and, still completely shocked, complied.

Melissa, at least, still seemed to be sane. She was crying unabashedly on the couch, and had to set a wadded up tissue in her lap to accept the mug, which she did. She smiled through her tears.

"It's weird, I agree," she said throatily. "But it helps." Then she patted the cushion next to her.

Jill sat.

Melissa looked at the mug of champagne a moment, then at her husband. "Do you remember when he gave these to us?"

Timothy had claimed the World's Okayest Doctor glass, leaving Carter with the Coffee prescription mug. "Dalton had . . . a GSW and Lassa fever. We had to keep him down here a week in quarantine."

Carter blew out his cheeks, plucking up the mug. "Bet he was a happy camper."

"Oh, you have no idea," Timothy replied. "And it was early December, so he was extra grumpy that he might miss Christmas with his family in Texas."

Melissa was nodding. "Mac was down here every day, trying to keep the nurses from murdering Dalton in his sleep. And Bozer – this was well before he became an agent – had been trying hot chocolate recipes for the Christmas party."

"Melissa there is the sommelier of hot cocoa," Timothy told Carter, his voice oddly proud. "Really of most any chocolate. Which she didn't tell _me_ until we'd been dating two years and I thought Fannie May chocolates were better than average."

"You're a Chicago boy, so you're forgiven," his wife murmured, then turned to include Jill in the conversation. "Mac would bring me a sample of hot chocolate to try, every morning, for five days. Always in a new mug." She looked at the snowman fondly, turning the tall mug around in her hands. "We keep the other four at the house."

Jill scooted back a little onto the couch, letting herself sink into the cushion. ". . . that sounds like him."

"He's always been kind. Even when he's in pain." Her face clouded a little, then she glanced up at her husband. "We'll have to tell Tasha tomorrow first thing."

Timothy nodded, and the smile seemed to slide right off his face. "You're right," he agreed. "And she'll want to help plan the memorial."

The name rang a bell, and Jill fidgeted with the flask a moment. Tasha was the nurse that Mac had escaped from, a year ago, after the villa and the op to retrieve him. And one of the nurses that had treated him after he'd spent a few days at large in LA, before his team had found him and convinced him to return.

Jill recalled no small amount of teasing between the two after that. She was likely to take his loss very personally.

"So will Chad," Timothy added. "Mac found the diamond from her wedding ring, remember that?"

Carter gave a short laugh. "Lemme guess. He took apart your x-ray machine to use a tiny little piece of it to find it."

"No, that time it was . . . a laser pointer, my watch, and a pair of Maui Jims."

"He actually put all of that back together," Melissa noted, smiling a little through fresh tears. "He was always good to our equipment."

"Wish I could say the same," Carter grumbled good-naturedly, taking a seat on the edge of the desk. "Number of times that kid set off the alarms . . . he could generate error codes even the manufacturers didn't recognize."

Which reminded Jill – "You mean the time his Korben challenge entry would randomly drive itself around in circles in Dock A and set off the motion sensors?"

Carter pointed at her and snapped his fingers. "God yes. For _days_. Drove my guys out of their minds. They thought the damn thing was possessed." Then he laughed. "We coulda seriously messed with Dalton with that one, but he was off on the same op. Lost opportunity."

Her first instinct was to say it wasn't, because the prototype was still downstairs –

With a lot of other projects, actually. Waiting patiently for their creator to return and finish them.

It was a sobering thought, and Jill dropped her eyes back down to the flask.

She couldn't count how many of them she and Mac had broken over the last few years. When the two of them happened to be on the same projects, they tended to have a combustion or liquid component that expanded – or contracted – quite rapidly.

"It's going to be hard to win the next challenge without him," she said softly.

"Hey now." Timothy came over, and took a seat on the coffee table, across from the two women. "That's not what you talk about at a celebration of life."

She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the flask, watching the glass wobble as her eyes filled. "I've . . . never been to one, actually."

"Oh." He jostled her knee with his, and she glanced up at him. He was smiling at her. "You talk about the way someone lived. Mac poured his heart into everything, even some car that's driving itself around in Dock A right now. His heart's still in that car. Just like it's in that mug." He nodded his head at his wife's Frosty the Snowman. "We've got the memorial for crying. A celebration of life is about the way someone lived. And nobody lived quite like Mac."

Melissa grabbed a tissue from the box and offered it to her, and Jill accepted it as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

Timothy tilted his head. "What would Mac say about this, huh?"

"Don't do that." Carter dragged a stool closer to the couch. "Mac would tell you two simple things about the characteristics of sparkling wine, then break out his knife and scrape some random shit off the bottom of the coffee table and sprinkle it in her drink, and turn it purple or something."

Jill shook her head. "Butterfly pea."

Carter snorted. "Butterfly pee? Sure, why not."

She blinked at him, momentarily nonplussed. "Butterfly pee?"

"You said it."

"Butterfly pea, the flower," she corrected him, still not quite sure she knew what they were talking about. "You infuse alcohol with butterfly pea flower. It turns purple in acid. If you put a little pea-infused vodka in the champagne, it would turn the whole glass purple and pink."

The three of them stared at her for a second, and Jill glanced between them. "What? It's how we made Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters one year."

"That," Carter said, pointing right at her. "That is what Mac would say."

"It's just chemistry." It wasn't even impressive chemistry, though it had made the drinks – which were basically spiked lemonade – mesmerizing as well as tasty.

"No. It's magic," Melissa corrected her softly. "That's exactly what Mac would do. He'd take 'just chemistry' and make it into something beautiful."

She exchanged a look with her husband, who started to get up, before glancing at his watch. "I don't think we have time to titrate anything. I should have thought that through," he added in disappointment.

Jill fished out her phone, swapping her flask from her right hand to her left, and consulted the time in the righthand corner.

11:52 pm.

"Don't worry about it, Tim." Joshua eased back onto the stool. "Security, Applied Science, and Medical all toasting him with whatever we could find lying around has Mac written all over it." He grinned. "It's exactly the right amount of irreverent."

"I wonder if it's too irreverent to drink a round before we do the actual toast," Timothy murmured, and his wife kicked him lightly in the shin.

-M-

Jack took the seat beside the bed, scooting it as close as he could get it. He had to admit, the chair was way the hell more comfortable than the stool, but after sitting in it on and off for the past fifteen or so hours, even he was getting tired of it. Jack put his hand on his partner's wrist, well aware that his fingers were seeking a pulse point.

It was still there, just the like the monitors said it was. Sluggish, but there. They were keeping him at fifty beats a minute.

Steady.

He homed in on it, taking a slow, deep breath.

 _You got this, Jackie-boy._

"Hey bud," he greeted, then winced at how falsely cheerful it sounded. Mac would see through that instantly. That wasn't the way to go.

"Well, guess the cat's outta the bag," he added, in a much more normal tone. Like they were having a conversation. An important one.

A moment of truth.

"They can't do anything else for ya, man. Me, Matty, everybody back home . . . we're outta ideas. You prolly figured that out a while ago, but you know us. You know me," he added softly, then clenched his teeth and forced the lump away.

"Kid . . ." He realized how hard he was gripping Mac's wrist, and he loosened his hold with effort. "I'm sorry. If you're hurtin'. You know the last thing I ever wanted was to cause you any pain. I keep thinkin', maybe I shouldn't'a told those medics to do whatever it took. Maybe . . . maybe you were ready to go. Maybe all I did was drag this out. If that's true, that's what you're thinkin' . . ." He trailed off.

Blaming himself was also selfish. He had the rest of his damn life to blame himself. Mac sure as shit didn't need to listen to it.

"I don't wanna let you go," he admitted hoarsely. "But I think hangin' on isn't what you need. In a little while, everyone's gonna come in and say hi, and then they're gonna give you a shot of the good stuff and pull this damn thing outta your throat. Then we're gonna take you home. I'll be by your side the whole way, kid. You got nothin' to worry about."

The tears were silent, and Jack worked hard to keep it that way. "An' I know what you're thinkin'. I'll keep an eye on Boze. He's takin' this hard, man. Matty'll do her thing, it's kinda magic. Not sure she's ever done it to you, but she has a way about her. She'll keep him safe, Mac. We'll keep him safe."

Besides Boze, Mac didn't have much in the way of things he'd specified. "Not sure we'll be able to convince him to keep the house, though. And we sure as hell can't use it as a Phoenix safehouse, not without puttin' in a damn security system," Jack added, with a tiny amount of heat. "An' I know you don't want us drillin' a buncha holes in your grandfather's house. I expect Boze'll want to donate it, maybe to the Boys and Girls Club, they can auction it or maybe make it a house for teens to rack out in when they need a place to stay. I think you and your grandpa would be okay with that."

His peeps, his stuff, what else - "I know you said no burial, way too expensive and bad for the environment, yaddah yaddah. But hate to say it, Angus, you can't donate anything, you're just way too sick. I think your living will says cremation and scattering at sea, but . . . I'm gonna tuck you in with your mom. You spent too long away from family, bud." He paused, taking a breath through his mouth as his nose threatened to run. "Maybe it don't mean much to you but . . . it means somethin' to me."

 _Possibly a prison sentence, if they catch you,_ Mac's voice pointed out, only slightly playfully, in his mind.

"Felony schmelony," he shot back, before he even thought about it. "You don't like it, stop me."

Mac didn't rise to the bait, and Jack gave him a fond, if tremulous, smile.

"Yeah, I know, I gotta get my shit together." He let go of his partner to look at the inside of his own wrist. Checking the time. "I'll take care of everything, man. Well, except the party, I'll leave that to younger folks. You know I'll have me a personal little party with my good friend Gentleman Jack." Or maybe the scotch. It would really depend. "But everybody else . . . I'll take care of 'em. An' I'll make sure everyone hears the news. We don't wanna leave little Annabelle in a lurch, or . . . uh . . ." He snapped his fingers a couple times. "Malorie? Vanna? Damn, that kid you loaned your treehouse to back in Mission City. I'll make sure they know, they never think you just up and left 'em."

That would be important to him. Too many people had left him behind, made him feel forgotten. He would never want to do that to someone else.

 _And there's no way in hell anyone who's met you would ever forget you. Not even your deadbeat dad._

Jack took a deep, cleansing breath, then patted Mac's wrist a couple times. "Well, bud, I'll be back in a few. Gotta go collect everyone. Feel free to change your mind, in the meantime, though?"

None of the monitors went crazy, and after a few seconds Jack Dalton forced himself to get up, wipe his face, and slowly make his way out of Mac's room. He stripped the mask, gloves, and smock at the door, and when it slid open, he expected to hear quiet voices, maybe the squeak of sneakers as Mac's care team prepared to pull all that shit off him.

Instead, he heard Riley's voice, uncertain, with a little edge that told him something was not okay.

Riley and Bozer were in the hallway, about halfway between Mac's room and the office they'd likely just left. Wilt had clearly put on the brakes; he was leaning hard into the wall, his arms around his chest, and Riley had an arm around him, her head ducked down trying to get his attention. Bozer was staring at the floor, breathing through his mouth.

Panicking.

"-just breathe, dude, just take a breath with me, okay? One big breath, hold it for one second."

She demonstrated, but Bozer didn't follow along. He squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head lower.

"Come on, Bozer, you gotta breathe."

Jack was on them in only a few strides. "Whoa, now, what's goin' on here . . .?"

Riley turned her face towards him, but she kept her eyes on Bozer. "We're cool, he's just not sure he wants to –"

"I can't go in there," he cut her off breathlessly, even has he hung onto her for dear life. "I can't go in there. I can't. I can't – I –"

"Okay, slow it down there, hoss," Jack drawled, exactly like he would have to a panicking colt trapped in barbed wire. Wilt's eyes were just as white-ringed, and though his brown eyes were dark, Jack could see his pupils were huge. This was full-blown panic.

"You don't gotta go anywhere. You hear me? You don't gotta go in there. You're fine out here. You're good."

Riles seemed to pick up on the vibe he was throwing out. She didn't say anything, but she rested her temple against Bozer's, taking obvious breaths. It didn't take long before Wilt started mimicking her, without even realizing he was doing it.

Jack's heart momentarily swelled with pride.

 _That's my girl._

Clearly she'd had some practice in the last few days.

"There you go, dude. We gotcha. We're gonna stay right here."

Wilt gulped down air. "I don't - why they gotta – it's so soon, why –"

It wasn't hard to piece together what he meant. Jack exchanged a look with Riley, who continued rubbing his back, keeping him propped up between her and the wall.

"Well," Jack said slowly, putting his left shoulder into the wall as well, so he was right in front of Wilt, "I guess they don't see a reason not to go ahead and get ready. I mean, if Mac is that far gone, then it's all the same to him, right? And if he's not, then there's no reason to make him wait when we can give him some relief."

When they boiled it down, if Mac knew what was happening, then waiting was torture. Waiting was just prolonging everyone's pain. That was why they'd set the time for an hour after Bozer had signed. Enough time for him to change his mind – if he wanted to – and to notify people – which they hadn't – but not so long that they could torture themselves with endless hours of doubts and what-ifs.

Wilt had made his decision. Waiting now was hurting him just as much as it was hurting Mac.

Bozer shook his head vehemently. "But they didn't say – I – I just signed . . . why – why can't we – just wait -"

"Okay, dude, we can take a minute." He was pretty sure that was even true. "Let's just take a minute."

Bozer hiccupped, a sure sign that he was still hyperventilating, and didn't say anything.

"You don't gotta go in there at all, man," Jack pointed out. "Nobody's saying you have to. And I _know_ Mac would never want you to do something you ain't comfortable doin'."

Wilt went back to head shaking. "But I . . . I-"

"But nothin', amigo. He gets it. _Trust_ me." Jack moved his gaze to Riley. "Same goes for you, kiddo. You don't have to go in there if you can't."

God knew Mac would never hold it against them. Any of them.

"But me . . . this is the very last time I can ever be there for 'im. You know?" He felt the mask crack a little, and he covered it with a smile that he knew wasn't fooling either of them. "This is the last time I can ever have his back. So I'm gonna go in there and do that." He nodded, slowly, until he was sure that he meant it. "I don't wanna regret not bein' there for him."

Riley gave a shaky little sigh, then blinked too-bright eyes. "I – I know, Jack. I . . . I wanna be there too. For Mac."

He tried to turn his smile into a reassuring one. "I think he'd appreciate that."

Bozer tried valiantly to catch his breath. "I – but I – how can I – "

"Boze, it's okay." He'd repeat it until the younger man believed it. Even if it took the rest of his life. "You're doing what you're supposed to be doin', dude. Doin' it better than anybody in the world could. You just . . . just hang out here. Patience'll come keep you company." He was actually surprised she wasn't up here, but he supposed the other agents were giving his team a little privacy to grieve in peace.

Wilt shook his head again, and then he looked up, and tears were streaming down his face. "I . . . I – I wanna but - he's – he's –" He made a monumental effort to swallow his tears. "I'm . . . I'm – can you - help-"

Riley hugged him tighter. "Yeah, dude. I gotcha. One step at a time."

And that was how they moved down the hall – one step at a time. Riley didn't let go of him for one second, and the closer they drew to Mac's room, the more and more calm Bozer seemed to grow. Maybe because it was getting real, maybe because he realized that being there for Mac simply meant being present – no expectations, no wrong choices. Just making sure Mac knew that he wasn't alone. That was all they had to do.

Matty had somehow snuck in there in the interim, along with the whole damn care team. They'd already pulled most of the equipment away, and as Jack glanced through the window, he saw the kid – Henry? – mopping up a few drops of what looked like blood off the floor.

Probably from where they'd pulled that huge-ass tube out of Mac's thigh. The one that was keeping his temperature steady.

He did it quickly, and Jack intentionally slowed the pace so Bozer didn't see.

He also noticed that no one was wearing infection prevention gear. No point. "Hey, looks like we don't all have to cosplay as Smurfs anymore," he said lightly.

Riley jumped on board. "It is still super weird to me that you know what cosplay is, Jack."

"Those stupid smocks - would be a pretty shitty attempt," Bozer said thickly, looking deliberately forward. "Like . . . wearing a Naruto headband to Comic-Con."

Jack winked at Riley. "At least I didn't know _that_."

"I'm not sure that's points in your favor, old man," she told him point-blank. Then they were at the door.

Crossing the threshold was tough. He wasn't actually sure Bozer could do it. Riley didn't force him, either, she just paused with him, and they both studied the metal track in the floor for an endless moment before Bozer squeezed his eyes shut, and stepped over it.

They didn't stop again until they were at his bedside.

His care team had already stripped most of the equipment. No more IV tubes running under his blankets. No dialysis machine, none of that other garbage. Someone had even gotten rid of those blue and white sensors, and cleaned off the goo. He was basically free of tubes and wires, just the ventilator and the pacemaker. Jack had been in the room earlier when they'd given Mac some painkillers, and something to help keep him calm.

Even though they'd already fucking told them eighty times that Mac shouldn't have needed either. They did it anyway.

Jack wasn't sure if that made him feel better or worse.

They'd brought in a few more chairs – no need to worry about everything being sterile anymore – and Jack took the right of the bed, sitting on Mac's left, so his free hand was closest to his partner. Matty had claimed the foot of his bed as her own, and Riley and Bozer, arm in arm, came up on Mac's right. Riley deposited Bozer in the chair, then looked around tentatively before she settled for sitting on the bed near Mac's feet.

They'd sat him up a little, so that everyone could see his face, and Jack thought, even though the ventilator was still hooked up, that it sounded like Mac was able to breathe just a little easier. The tube still tugged at his lip, making him forever look like he was halfheartedly frowning. Other than that, he looked relaxed.

No different than he had before. Not upset, not anxious. Just deeply calm.

The hospital administrator was one of the people in the room, but he didn't speak. It was Dr. Meijer who approached their solemn little group. She circled around them, coming to stand by the ventilator until she could face them, and see all their eyes.

"When you're ready, we'll turn off the ventilator and remove the endotracheal tube. We'll also turn off the external pacemaker. Once that's done, withdrawn of all supportive care will be complete."

She looked at each of them, acknowledging them, and it was a little weird to see her green eyes in this setting without a mask covering everything else. She was an older woman, mid-fifties, and there were deep lines around her mouth. Though the steel in her eyes hadn't changed, seeing the rest of her face made her slightly less emotionless.

"His body may not shut down all at once. His heart may start beating on its own for a little while. It may seem like he's trying to take a few breaths. They might sound gasping or difficult. That's just his diaphragm working on autopilot. He may seem to react, he might grimace, or his Adam's apple may move, but he won't be experiencing any pain, and he will have no sensation of suffocation."

She scanned their group again, this time focusing almost all her attention on Bozer. "The brain can become very active in the moments of death as it processes brand new information. In some cases, it can take up to an hour for all the systems of the body to shut down. However, given Mr. MacGyver's condition, I don't anticipate we will observe much of that."

Jack was so focused on the idea that the kid might actually suffer a prolonged trip into the afterlife that he straight up missed it, didn't even notice until Matty quietly cleared her throat.

Dr. Meijer frowned at her. "You may bury him with whatever name you like, but I will not disrespect my patient in his final moments by calling him anything other than his given name."

"Then call him Mac," Matty replied calmly.

Dr. Meijer leveled a very Matty-like look at the Hun herself, then gave a short nod. "Many times the loved ones of patients are unsure what they are supposed to do, or how they should behave. It is appropriate, even encouraged, to show emotion. Speak with one another, and with Mac. Dr. Peterson and I will remain to care for the patient and to determine the time of death. If you're ready, we'll begin."

The last was meant solely for Bozer.

Jack glanced at him, just on the other side of Mac. He had his roommate's hand clasped between his own, and his head was bowed. He honestly wasn't sure if the kid was praying or not, but he was certainly crying. He didn't move a muscle.

The ventilator clicked, and Mac took a breath.

Wilt's face crumpled, and then he gave a fraction of a nod.

Jack squeezed the hand he was holding in his own, and forced himself to relax. Talking during tense moments, that was his superpower.

"Hey now, this ain't goodbye," he said firmly, deliberately not paying attention to Meijer quietly turning off the machine, nor of the other doctor coming up to remove the tape from Mac's face. "It's just 'til next time."

Bozer wouldn't look at him, wouldn't look at anyone, so he focused on Riley. "There's a whole lotta love in this room. That ain't goin' nowhere."

Matty reached up and put a hand on Mac's feet.

"And neither is he. He'll still be around. You'll see." Jack heard more than saw the tube being withdrawn, but there was no sound of gagging, no cough. When he did dare to look, it was to see Meijer dabbing the corner of Mac's mouth with a wipe. She'd closed his jaw, and when she backed off, finally, that permanent frown was gone.

"There's our boy," he said warmly, and gave Mac's hand another squeeze. "That's better."

The monitors had been silenced and kept from flashing, but looking at Mac's head had shown him the stats, and he saw Mac's heartrate drop in the blink of an eye from 50 beats per minute down to 21. He immediately averted his gaze.

He didn't want to know the moment that beautiful heart finally stopped beating.

"I have a whole little collection of his paperclips," Riley said suddenly, into the silence. "He and I played this game, on long flights. When you and Boze were talking about something dumb, he'd make these random shapes, and then I'd have to work the name of whatever he'd made into the conversation." Her smile was wan but genuine.

Jack snorted – at least, he tried to. "That explains a few . . . weird talks we had on the plane . . ."

She smiled more broadly. "And speaking of weird talks, you would not _believe_ the face he made when you were sweet-talking Genevieve that time. That was . . . that was something."

"He's . . . he's good at that himself," Bozer noted tentatively, his voice cracking. "The first time Mac had me cut power - to the neighborhood - Mr. Schwartz caught me standin' up there on a ladder, holdin' a flamin' broomstick. My bestie tapdanced us right outta that, no problems."

It wasn't hard to picture. "Yeah, he's good at foolin' ya when he wants to," Jack agreed, shooting Bozer a reassuring grin. "Like that time he let you kick his ass at ping-pong 'cause you were still all torn up about Leanna –"

A shadow momentarily crossed Bozer's face. "Yeah, I guess I gotta tell Leanna . . ."

"Well, just don't tell her over drinks," Riley suggested, her voice slightly pained. "I don't know which hit you two worse, Mac's magical hangover shortcut, or the homemade chloroform . . ."

International crime lord aside, Jack wasn't terribly sorry he'd missed that one. "Trust me, that was not the worst thing he ever did. Try havin' him on your team for charades."

Even Bozer cracked a little smile. "Yeah, that's true, but . . . Bunsen burner eggnog kinda makes up for it."

Christmas.

Jesus, they weren't gonna have him for Christmas. No more debating about Santa. No more sneaking into his house to leave presents under the tree and almost getting shot.

No more snow machine, to give Riley a white Christmas. No more homemade gifts, that perfectly, simply, elegantly solved a problem.

No more Christmas morning phone calls.

No more phone calls ever.

A wobble threatened to crack the very foundations of his calm, and Jack tried valiantly to stuff it down. "Hey, I ever tell you kids about the time me and him hadda extract an asset from a high rise on Christmas Eve? Dressed as Santa and Ruldolph?"

Mac took a breath.

It was exactly what Meijer had told them it would be. Gasping. Difficult. Like his diaphragm had spasmed, but his airway wasn't opened up. Almost like someone with sleep apnea.

But he didn't grimace. Didn't open his mouth, didn't look like he was in any pain. His expression didn't change at all.

Jack tightened his grip on Mac's limp hand. "We're all right here, man. Right here beside ya, the whole way. You got nothin' to be scared of, brother."

He intentionally didn't look at the monitors, but he couldn't help noticing that neither doctor had so much as twitched in Mac's direction.

Both Bozer and Riley had looked up, startled, but Mac didn't repeat the trick, and after a few seconds, Bozer dropped his head again. ". . . I never did get him to teach me how to make those duct tape roses."

"You still have those?" Riley sounded a little surprised.

"Yeah . . . that and the paperclip vase. Musta taken him hours . . . I should put 'em back out."

They were getting too deep into dangerous territory, and Jack struggled to find some way to lighten the mood. "Dunno that it took him hours, Boze . . . he's like Barry Allen when it comes to breakin' shit."

He was hoping Bozer would fall down the rabbithole about who the 'real' Flash was. It was conversations like those they always had on the back deck by the firepit. Mac had fallen asleep on more than one occasion to him and Bozer debating the finer points of comic book characters, and more than anything, that's what he wanted this to be for Mac.

Falling asleep, warm and safe, with his family gathered around him.

"You have no idea," Bozer said instead, still weeping silently. "He can take apart a DVD player in about eight seconds flat."

"Naw, I saw him do that, Boze, with my own eyes. Remember that bomb under the house?" Whether it was comic books or shitty missions, the one-upping would be familiar.

Wilt suddenly smirked, just a little. " _I_ remember a few phones biting it in record time . . ."

Jack groaned. "Really? You're really bringin' that up now?"

Mac took another breath.

This one sounded harder. More urgent. Like his lungs knew, instinctively, that he needed air, but the rest of his body wasn't cooperating. There was no rattle in it, for which Jack would be forever grateful, and he struggled to come up with something to say in the deafening silence that followed.

"I guess my phones are finally safe," was all he could come up with. Hell, they probably should have had it going, playing some music, he hadn't even thought about it. "But I tell you what, I'd gladly buy a hundred phones, and let 'im tear up ninety-nine of 'em if it meant –"

If it meant his partner, his brother, his best friend, his son would be around to do it.

Jack took a difficult breath of his own, and worked hard to keep the tears in his eyes, where they belonged.

". . . you're such a liar."

He glanced over, startled, to find Bozer watching him almost calmly. He even smiled a little.

"You'd let him have all hundred."

Jack laughed. A real one. ". . . you're right, dude. I totally would."

 _I'd give him every goddamn one. And I'd smile while I did it._

Jack leaned up a little, so that he could reach, and he shifted his grip and clasped Mac's hand between his left and his right, like he had so many times after they'd just barely skirted death. That was when he finally noticed it.

Mac's hand no longer felt like a warm cadaver. It felt like a hand.

There was zero tension in it, that was for sure, but it wasn't just a skin glove stuffed with bones and flesh. There was just the tiniest amount of muscle tone, holding the joints of his fingers together, shaping his palm as Jack pressed it between his own.

It was a hand again.

Startled, Jack looked back up at the monitor. Mac's heart was still going; the machine said it was up to 35 bpm. And Dr. Meijer was watching Mac with sharp green eyes.

She didn't say anything, and Jack didn't dare. The doc moved smoothly but without urgency, didn't get Riley or Bozer's attention. She just walked over and gently pried his left eye open. Jack didn't see a change, but then she reached out and tapped the corner of it with her finger.

And Jack saw Mac's eyelid give a little twitch.

Mac sucked down a third labored breath.

Something passed between the two doctors; the other woman – Patterson? – moved silently but swiftly towards a cupboard in the back, and Bozer finally seemed to realize that something was happening, because he opened his eyes and looked up questioningly.

Meijer didn't even glance at them. She pulled out her iPhone, typing rapidly, then set it carelessly on the top of the ventilator as the other doctor returned with a tube in a sealed plastic bag. The tearing plastic sounded loud in the thick silence.

Bozer found his voice first. "What . . . ?"

It was an intubation kit.

"I apologize," the doctor said calmly, as if her rapidly moving hands required no attention whatsoever. "Mr. MacGyver responded to a corneal reflex test. Therefore, by law, we must temporarily resume supportive care and continue diagnostic testing."

The other doctor took the kit from her, which was what looked like a metal clamp with a tube in the middle, and Jack almost winced as she gently opened Mac's mouth, then expertly jammed the whole damn thing down his throat. He didn't gag, didn't cough. Didn't move a muscle. As soon as the doctor withdrew the metal, Meijer had the tube reattached to the ventilator, and the machine clicked.

And Mac took a breath.

Jack looked back up at the monitors, looking at his oxygen levels. They'd dropped into the low eighties. Meijer twisted a dial, increasing the ventilator's frequency, then focused back on Wilt.

"As I told you before, the brain can become very active in the moments of death. It could be that this is an anomaly, and these reflexes will subside. If that should happen, we'll honor the order you signed, and continue the process of withdrawal."

It didn't look like Bozer was catching on – though he hadn't let go of Mac's hand for one second. "And if not . . .?"

Behind them, the doors hissed open, and multiple feet hit the tile. Jack didn't bother to look.

Meijer glanced down at her patient, then her eyes flicked back to Wilt. And for a split second, Jack saw something

there that he hadn't, not ever before. Something eager. Maybe even excited.

"If not . . . then it looks like your Mr. MacGyver is finally starting to take this seriously."

-M-

There was a faint scent – something citrusy and spicy and painfully familiar – and despite himself, Angus opened his eyes.

The sunlight was dazzling, reflecting from a million prisms, and he felt his body swept by the wave into his father's strong arms.

 _Do you know what makes the ocean waves?_

He smiled, even underwater. "The wind. It blows across the surface, and just like with leaves, or grass, or little boys, molecules of air collide with molecules of water, and they push against one another."

At the time, he'd been all of five, and hadn't really understood his father's explanation. But he'd pretended to, because he loved to hear his father explain things. He was so earnest, and he always knew the answer to every question.

The water was cold, so cold that it had made him numb, and Angus held onto his father's arm, waiting patiently for the wave to pass.

It should be cold. It was the Pacific ocean. That water was affected by currents as far as the North Pole. Only the idea that Santa had swum in that water had gotten him to take his first steps into it. And now, he and his father were chest deep. His tiny little feet couldn't touch the bottom.

He smiled at the memory. The first time he'd learned that sharks were really dinosaurs. "If I fall in, will I float?"

 _You weigh a lot less than the water your body displaces. As long as that constant remains true, you're always going to float._

But that constant wasn't true anymore. His lungs were full of water. They didn't hurt any longer, but he remembered them filling with fluid, until there was no room left for gas. His whole body was saturated. He weighed more than the water he was displacing.

He wasn't going to float. Not ever again.

Only then did Angus realize that was why the wave wasn't passing. It would never pass. He was underwater. He scrabbled for his father's arm, but it was slick from the water and sunscreen, and he was so heavy.

His father let him go.

Angus reached up, frantically trying to grab his father's hand, but it was withdrawn as his dad used it to tread water. Like he didn't even notice.

". . . dad . . . ? _Dad_!"

All Mac could do was stare up at the surface, watching his father's thin legs kicking, keeping himself afloat. More and more legs entered his field of vision as he sank. Yellow polka-dotted bikini bottoms – Riley. Still alive. Still safe and well. Hunter green swim trunks – Bozer. But soon he couldn't pick out specific people. There were too many, so many that mattered to him. Pale legs, thick legs, dark legs, legs wearing fins, legs wearing prosthetics.

Up there was air, and light, and life. And they were okay. They were all gonna be okay.

Angus sank.

And that was okay.

The undertow embraced him, wrapping his body in an ever-growing pressure. It didn't hurt. He had a greater density than water, he could no longer be crushed. Colors started to disappear into endless shades of deep blue. Still, he kept his eyes fixed on the surface, watching the dancing light even as shadows started to grow around him.

That wasn't his world anymore.

But damn, it was beautiful.

 _We had a deal, dude._

It took him a long time to realize the shadow approaching was Jack.

 _I go and finish up the grocery run, and you stick around and cool your heels 'til I get back. That was the deal._

Jack didn't belong down here. He belonged back on the surface. Mac stared at him in confusion as he swam closer, fighting to keep himself submerged.

"Jack . . . what are you _doing_ here?"

 _So what the fuck do you call this, huh?_

He knew what he would call it, and he knew that Jack didn't want to hear that.

". . . it's not your fault, Jack. None of this is your fault." Jack wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to be with Riley. "I-I tried, I really did try, but-"

But it hurt too much. Felt too much like drowning. Like suffocating. He'd had his share of that, more than his share. It was easier to just go to sleep. He'd read accounts from Jews in Auschwitz, that the men who had been forced to clear the gas chambers had advised the next batch to take a deep breath. That it was easier. Then it would be over and done with.

It wasn't giving up. It was accepting that he was too heavy, and the surface was too far.

". . . I'm sorry. Jack, I'm sorry." I'm sorry for doing this to you, I really am.

 _I know it took me a while, but I'm here. I'm here._

The pain in Jack's voice broke his heart. He didn't know how long it had taken, whether Jack had found him in that same hour, or later that morning, but it wouldn't matter. He'd ordered Jack to leave him in that courtroom, and it was the last look they ever exchanged. Jack was never going to forgive him for that.

For dying.

Worse, for dying without him.

" . . . I can see you, big guy. And not to sound ungrateful, but if you stick around, you're gonna drown." Not that that warning was going to do much to stop a determined Jack Dalton, so Mac reached up for the hand that was reaching down for him – and he pushed off, using his own momentum to stop Jack's, and absorb it into his own.

Making himself sink faster.

The stricken look on his partner's shadowed face almost made him flinch.

"I'm sorry, Jack," he repeated gently. "You . . . you can't follow me here."

Please don't follow me here.

Jack was defeated by his own buoyancy, and Mac watched him shrink, growing smaller and smaller against the ever-widening, ever-dimming light at the surface.

It got quieter.

Most of the diving he'd done had been near the reefs. Lots of coral, lots of sea life. There was also a constant sound of snaps and cracks, that he'd been taught were the sounds of the fish, chewing on the reef, trying to get to the plankton that gave it its amazing colors. But here there was no coral. There wasn't enough sunlight. So the snaps, the crackles, they were much further apart. Much more drawn out.

He was in the middle of the ocean. An immense expanse of water, with not much in it. Just the light, growing more and more dispersed.

No sharks. No whales. No schools of fish. Somewhere he could make out the distant pinging of some kind of man-made sonar, and sounds that had been so flattened by water and his soggy eardrums that it took him a long time to string them into words.

Bozer's words.

Bozer had been popping up out of dark corners since they were little kids. He'd learned to narrow his eyes when they were playing hide and seek, so that the whites of them wouldn't give him away. He could be anywhere in these dark waters, and Mac would never be able to see him.

With any luck, Boze was safe at home. Untouched by Hakan and his men. Far from all of this.

Hadn't there been . . . a text? Mac wished he'd checked it.

". . . I hope you're safe, buddy," he murmured to the shadows. And the shadows murmured back. Animated. Playful, even. Teasing.

Hell, Bozer could cheer up a tombstone. No one else could belt out Lady Gaga in the shower loud enough to be heard throughout the entire house. No one else could make a complicated and amazingly entertaining game out of hitting rubber duckies into the pool with badminton racquets.

No one else could make homemade waffles that honestly made you feel better when your chest still smarted, not from the bullet that had torn through it, but from the heart that had been shattered first by death, then betrayal.

Bozer was an agent now. And he couldn't keep him safe. Not anymore.

" . . . listen to Jack," he begged the water. "Be careful, man. And when it's time . . . promise me you'll walk away."

Walk away from this life you never chose. Settle down with a woman who loves you. Raise a pair of hooligans just like you and me, and teach them your Christmas pastrami recipe.

Don't come down here, man. Please don't. Not until you have to.

The water was begging him, too. He could hear the tone, couldn't make out the words. Maybe they didn't matter.

That night on the deck, that was the last time they'd spoken. Bozer pointing out how they were born to a life of crime. Hamburgers and beers. It was a good memory.

The best.

"You're gonna be okay, Boze," he told the water. It didn't believe him. It sounded worried. Scared. "It's gonna be okay."

It's gonna be okay.

"It doesn't hurt," he told the ocean. Just pressure, always building. Paralyzing. He knew his body was rotting. Eventually he was going to sink, so far down that there was no light. To the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Deeper into the ocean than Mount Everest was tall. Microbes that hadn't even been discovered yet were going to digest his skin and bones, and grow new little microbes of their own.

Death was a part of life. It was gonna be okay.

He just hadn't expected to be aware of it, that's all.

How big the ocean really was.

How empty it was.

 _Now, if the oceans cover 71% of the earth, and we've only explored 8% of the ocean, how many percent of the ocean remains for you to explore?_

His father's trick question. To a five year old boy who could barely conceive of one hundred percent of anything. Now he was sinking through it, staring up at that distant, distant twinkling light, doing nothing but making him aware of the vastness of the darkness around him.

Mac felt a wave of loneliness so sharp it would have taken his breath away, if he could still breathe. Would have made tears prick his eyes, if they weren't already full of water.

He was truly alone. In a great huge ocean, he was just a tiny piece of organic matter, on his way to the place all the organic matter before him had gone.

This is what they meant when they said everyone dies alone.

He closed his eyes. He didn't want to see the light anymore. Didn't want to hear their voices. Didn't want to think.

He just wanted it to be over.

Until fingers wove themselves into his hair.

He jumped, but he didn't open his eyes. He didn't need to. He remembered every inch of that room. The shelves mounted on the wall, holding Lego cranes and all his favorite books. The drawings he'd done that had made her smile the biggest. The powder blue walls and beige carpet and blue milk crate full of robots and Lincoln logs.

She brushed his bangs off his forehead, and Angus leaned into her touch, eyes still closed, taking deep, secret breaths of her scent.

Vanilla, and lavender soap. She'd been doing the laundry. He loved to help fold it, especially the towels.

 _My little genius doesn't feel well, does he._

He shook his head a little, and felt the bed sag as she sat on the edge. She didn't stop playing with his hair.

 _Boze is pretty upset, Mac._

He imagined that was true. "Boze has family. He'll be okay." Still, he was going to hurt. Hurt like he'd hurt when he'd lost Josh. They'd never talked about it, not once. Just like he'd never told Boze about the last time he'd spoken to his mom. There was some pain that was just too big.

Dark and vast, like an ocean.

He was gonna hurt Boze like that. The one thing he never, ever wanted to do.

But Boze was gonna be okay.

He had to be.

 _Jack's in total denial, which I'm sure is no surprise._ His mother sounded irritated and fond, all at the same time.

Angus smiled despite himself. "You'd love him, mom. A little rough around the edges, but he's a . . . he's a really good guy." He relaxed under her caress. " . . . he got me through hell and back. Got me through everything. Jack, he . . ." He squeezed his eyes shut, not sure why he suddenly wanted to cry. "He saved my life, mom. More times than I can count."

She shushed him, running her thumbs over his eyebrows. Stroking his cheek. _Those guys care about you_ , she observed gently, and he found himself nodding again.

"They really do." More emotions welled up, emotions he never really paid attention to, but here in his bed, with his mother, it was okay. "And I care about them, mom. I'm . . . I'm going to miss them."

God, he was going to miss them so much.

His mother made an amused sound, almost a laugh, and when she spoke, her voice was filled with warmth and love. _Stop dicking them around,_ she chided gently.

He had _never_ heard his mother use that language, and Mac's eyes flew open, stunned to find only the darkness, deep blue-blacks. The shadows had melded together, and the twinkle of the surface was gone.

His mother was gone, but the scent of vanilla and lavender lingered.

" . . . m-mom?"

The word went out into the endless sea, mournful, lonely.

And the sea answered.

 _You didn't have to do this._

It was feminine but sarcastic, too sarcastic to be his mother.

Riley.

It was Riley's voice.

Mac tried to pick her out of the water, but it was far too dark. Dark like her hair, tucked under his chin. Like the bruise they'd put on her face. And worse.

She was going to be _so_ pissed off. And not just because he lied to her.

Because he lied to her, and then he died.

"I was so close. Inches away from the river." He'd been _so close_. "Just . . . they had a Jack on board. Never saw him coming."

That was the way Aydin's guys worked. He was just never able to see it coming.

Certainly not what had happened to her.

"At least you're alive to be mad," he told the ocean, ignoring the way it made his heart ache.

 _Thank you for saving my life? You giant fucking idiot?_ she offered acerbically, and he winced.

"I deserve that." That and a whole lot more. ". . . I know I couldn't have stopped him from grabbing you, but . . . I pushed him into that corner. I upped the stakes. I should have known how he would retaliate, I should have – I should've done a lot of things differently." And not just with Aydin. When was the last time he'd told her how amazing she was? How impressed he was? How proud he was of the agent she was turning into?

Not since the Chinese subs. Not since supermax. She was there to pull him out of his head when Aydin had hurt him last year . . . and here he was, too fucking dead to repay the favor when she needed it.

Mac looked up – or where he hoped up was – and sent her a smile. Hoped his face was still intact enough that it looked okay. "You're one of the most capable people I've ever met. I hope you know that. I should have said it more. I should have said it out loud." It was so easy to take them for granted, but his team –

His team was the best.

The very best.

And he let them down.

Mac closed his eyes.

And he sank.

The blues disappeared, until there was only black. It was comforting, somehow. Sound became even more disrupted, so that when Bozer chided him, teased him, begged him – it almost sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher from the Thanksgiving special. He found that if he just relaxed, and no longer tried to make out the words, it eventually made sense. The separate phonics eventually coalesced into words.

 _I'm not saying goodbye. I'm not, you hear me?_

" . . . I hear you, Boze."

The ocean grumbled, something about Lady Gaga, and Mac smiled so hard he felt the rotting skin of his cheek split. There were more words, then a rhythmic pulse, deep and melodic, but it became fainter and fainter, slower and slower. He half thought Bozer was doing a Dora impression of talking to humpbacks, straight out of Finding Nemo, when he finally put together what his best friend was telling him.

 _. . . please wake up._

But there was no waking up from this. No reaching the surface. Mac didn't even know what direction it was. There were no fish, friendly or otherwise, to guide him home.

There was nothing.

" . . . I'm sorry, buddy," he said, and he truly, truly meant it.

Then things started getting weird.

There were little flashes of light, sort of like the fractals on the back of your eyelids if you rubbed them really hard and then tried staring through them. Something that sounded far too mammalian to be real whistled, he listened to the echo for a long time before he realized it must have been a porpoise. Somewhere it sounded like someone was crying, but half the time it sounded like a cat, and the other like an infant.

He must be in the trench. The sound was bouncing off the walls, unintelligible.

It wouldn't be long.

At the bottom of the trench was silt. Maybe miles of it. He was heavy, and he was sinking fast. He'd hit that silt layer like a meteor, it would explode up and around him, and bury him as it settled. No more sound. No more visitors. Just darkness.

No more paperclips.

He wasn't sure what made him think of it, or even when it had started – probably before Bozer had joined them. Riley was fascinated with his endless manipulation of paperclips. He'd started giving her prompts to throw into conversations, and now it was their thing. The thing only they did.

He'd never get to play that game with her, ever again.

No more watching Jack fast-talk himself out of an awkward situation with a woman. No more doing the fast-talking himself.

No more playing ping-pong with Bozer. No more working on Sparky.

No more working on anything.

No more missions.

No more games of charades.

No more Bunsen burner eggnog. No more pastrami, for that matter.

No more high rises with Jack Dalton, falling out of them or otherwise.

No more Bruce Willis. No more popcorn popped in coconut oil, or drizzled with chocolate. No more waffles drizzled in chocolate, either. No more beers on the back deck. No more fire pit.

No more laughter.

Mac opened his eyes, and looked out into the darkness.

No more breaking Jack's phone to pull off a miracle. No more miracles at all. No more adrenaline, that he could only get from saving the world.

No more life.

The closer he got to that silt layer, the less the noises in the trench echoed. The silt absorbed it somehow, lent it clarity. It was like he could hear them. Like they were right there in that trench with him.

Maybe in a submarine. Maybe that sonar pinging had been them, the whole time. Looking for him.

Maybe they were closer than he thought they were. Maybe, if he just hung on a little longer -

A submarine had enough lift. It might do the job.

" . . . guys . . . ?"

But he was rotted away. He'd never survive on the surface, his lungs were full of water. He was dead, and they were alive.

Jack's voice was as clear as a bell. _All you gotta do is grab on._

Or not. Fall into the silt, and be at peace.

. . . but there was no laughter there. Belly deep laughs that left you coughing and just a little sore the next morning. No memories made, of sitting on a plane fashioning an octopus just to see how Riley could fit it into a conversation about classic TV. He wanted one more mouthful of Bozer's waffles. Just one more shot at charades. One more mission.

One more chance. To tell them how much he loved them. How much they meant to him. How incredible they were.

One more chance.

 _We gotcha, Mac. I gotcha._

". . . I can't see you," he tried, casting around in the darkness. "Jack, I don't know which way's up!"

 _We're all right here, man._ His voice seemed to come from everywhere. Thick with emotion. _Right here beside ya, the whole way. You got nothin' to be scared of, brother._

But he was scared. It was too dark, as soon as he hit that silt they'd never be able to find him, sonar would be useless. He needed to figure out which way was up. Away from the silt. Towards them. And sound wasn't gonna help, was useless for orienting him in the water.

The only thing that was going to help was –

Was air.

No matter where he was in the water, bubbles always went up.

But he was waterlogged. Beyond it. He hadn't taken a breath since the surface. There was no air in his lungs to exhale.

. . . but lungs didn't actually need air. They could function like gills, the problem was that most water didn't have a high enough oxygen content to support human life. So his lungs were capable of exchanging oxygen with carbon dioxide in the water. If he could suck in enough water, exchange enough CO2 to form even the tiniest bubble –

Mac gave it a try.

It felt – weird. Wrong. Not like drowning, but a little like suffocating. He couldn't draw in enough water. His lungs were far too weak. Water was much heavier than air, and these pressures at these depths –

Mac reached out blindly, but his hands met only slime. No rocks, nothing firm enough for him to get a grip, help him bend his numb body into a better position.

Aydin had hit his lung. It was full of blood. Torn. Broken. It wouldn't work, it wouldn't hold water –

But he had to try.

Mac grit his teeth, and then he sucked in as much water as he could.

It was even harder. He held it as long as he could, putting his hand over his mouth, feeling a weird stirring in his chest. A burning, cutting through the numb.

He exhaled, and the _tiniest_ little silver bubble tickled his nostril, and then slid past his cheek, up his outstretched arm, to his hand, and flowed through his fingers.

He reached out blindly after it, grasping in the dark, and caught hold of something firm. Strong. Not slime, not sediment. Something solid.

 _I'm not gonna let go, man. I gotcha._

Mac hung on grimly, and his body started to straighten in the water column. As it did so, he slowly became aware of something else.

Pain.

Mac clenched his jaw, and he clung to whatever he was holding onto for dear life. And he knew, with one hundred percent certainty, that the next few minutes -

They were gonna suck.

-M-

My hiatus has been delayed a couple weeks by the world's least convenient case of strep throat. Which worked out well for you guys, because it let me finish this chapter! (Which is the longest one in the whole damn fic.) I have a confession to make – this entire sequel was written for this one chapter. I've been trying to figure out how to get readers to feel emotion like all my favorite authors can make _me_ feel emotion. So I thought of the most tragic situation I could, and it lent itself perfectly to a sequel.

And I think I missed the mark, guys.

I'd really love to know what you thought about that aspect of this chapter. Particularly people who didn't feel anything – can you tell me why not? Have you ever been made emotional by a fic, and this one just didn't do it for you? I'm trying to improve, and your feedback is super helpful, particularly those of you who point out what you don't like, or didn't feel was effective.

Though I also love to hear from those of you who do like it, and it's just as helpful to hear what you liked, and what worked for you too.

To that end – Mac's situation here is very similar to a real life situation with a real patient who really did suffer a massive trauma and mini stroke that resulted in a near diagnosis of brain stem death. And Mac's recovery will also mirror that real person's recovery, to an extend – I mean, Mac is a genius with the resources of a covert agency behind him, which most people don't have, but from a medical and time standpoint, I'll keep it as accurate as I possibly can.

IN SUMMARY – Mac was diagnosed with brain stem death, and after considering all the options, Bozer decided that Mac wouldn't want to linger when there was no hope. So he signed an order for medical support to be withdrawn. It was. And then Mac started spontaneously breathing on his own. Meanwhile, we finally got a glimpse into Mac's head, and the experience he's been having, all this time.


	23. Chapter 23

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

"Boze."

It was quiet, and gentle, and super easy to ignore. So he did.

"Bozer."

He registered pressure on his body, somewhere, and it tugged him closer to consciousness. Waking up was hard, like he'd just been deep in a dream –

Wilt Bozer opened his eyes, not quite sure why he was slouched over the armrest of a couch.

"Hey, brother. Riley says the doc's headed our way."

He blinked up blearily, unable to figure out why Saito was there. Had he finally taken him up on his hamburger offer . . .? And when did their leather couch get so squeaky?

Rich mahogany wood, behind Saito, caught his eye, and reality flooded back. He sucked in a quick breath, bolting upright, and the hand on his shoulder held firm.

"Easy. You got sixty seconds." _To get your shit together_ , the other agent didn't say, but Bozer heard it just the same. He nodded, rubbing his grainy eyes, and the hand on his shoulder vanished.

"Yeah. What'd I miss?" he asked, his vocal chords stiff with sleep. How the _fuck_ could he have fallen asleep? And –

And when the hell had the room gotten so crowded . . . ?

Saito wasn't the only surprise. Most of the Phoenix team was in there. John was sprawled on the couch opposite Bozer, head back, apparently dead to the world. Riley was on the other end of that couch, rig in her lap and one earbud in, obviously still spying on the hospital. Matty had appeared and was sitting in front the hateful desk, phone in hand, and Patience had the chair beside her. A glance the other direction showed him Jack was still on the other side of _his_ couch, watching him, and beyond Jack, Simmons was camped out against a bookcase, one eye on the door, and the other on the window.

Saito followed his gaze. "Not much. Mac's still taking the extended VIP tour. No one's said a peep since you conked out."

Wilt scrubbed his face, then forced himself onto his feet. They were still a little numb from all the pacing; he hadn't been asleep long. Guilt started chewing through his stomach again, and he took a deep breath, just like in yoga class, and tried to exhale it all out.

Mac didn't need his guilt.

Saito gave him a little nod, then backed off, and Bozer avoided looking at anyone else. It didn't leave him many safe places, and so he paced over to the window, then glanced at his watch.

Four hours. Four hours since they'd whisked Mac away for tests. It was almost one o'clock.

Sure enough, Saito's guesstimate was spot on. It wasn't ten seconds later that there was a quiet knock on the door, and Bozer braced himself, then turned to find –

It wasn't Meijer.

Dr. Henrik Teuling was standing in the doorway, scanning the room. When he found Wilt, he started towards him with a quick smile. "Mr. Bozer," he greeted, when they were only a few feet apart. "I have an update, if you'd like to step out and –"

"Here's fine," Wilt cut him off. There were no secrets now, and they'd all waited long enough. "How is he?"

Henrik studied his eyes for a moment, then gave a slow nod. "We're still running tests, but, cognitively speaking, Mr. MacGyver is more responsive than he's been since his arrival here at AMC. He's still in a coma, and we plan to keep him there for the time being to lighten the processing load, but . . . it's very clear that his brain stem is functional, at the level we expect for the type of injuries he's suffered."

Which was just an overwhelming amount of words. "Is he . . . is he going to be okay . . . ?"

Teuling's eyebrows rose a little, and Bozer's heart sank.

"He's still in critical condition," the young doctor told him, not unkindly. "The knife wound was life-threatening even before the other complications arose. It's too soon for us to tell if the organ dysfunction is turning around, and he continues to exhibit symptoms of neurogenic shock and infection. He's still very, very sick."

It wasn't anything Wilt didn't already know, but it felt crushing just the same. Mac had done the impossible, but it might still be too late.

"However, I can tell you that his heart is beating on its own, and there's been a modest increase in his white cell count. We've also heard peristalsis sounds from his intestines - that means rumbling - which is a good sign. It means his GI tract is still trying to function. We'll know more in the next twelve hours."

A grumbling tummy. He'd probably have indigestion too if his best friend had tried to kill him.

"Thank you, doctor." Matty's tone was all business, and Henrik turned towards her. Bozer didn't.

"Can you tell us what happened?"

The young man inclined his head, as if he'd expected that question. "His most recent MRI shows us there's . . ." The doctor trailed off, then looked Bozer right in the eye. "We're just guessing at this point," he rephrased. "It appears that the drop in blood pressure and oxygen levels triggered his brain stem into responding when less catastrophic methods had failed. We'd been compensating for his critical systems as they were shutting down - in essence, his brain stem didn't have to respond because things were being taken care of. Until they weren't."

Bozer dropped his eyes.

"I see." Matty's voice was thoughtful. "You mentioned earlier that you didn't think that kind of spontaneous recovery was possible for someone in his condition."

The doctor cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice was cooler. "If you're fishing for some kind of acknowledgement on the part of the medical center of the efficacy of an experimental drug –"

"I'm fishing for the truth," she interrupted flatly. "He had zero chance of survival, and now you're telling me not only that he may survive, but potentially have some kind of life after this?"

Teuling took a step back. Bozer didn't follow him.

"It's too early to say either of those things." Apparently he found himself on the receiving end of a Matty glare, because he continued. "Optimistically speaking, if we can get his liver and kidneys back, he fights off the sepsis, and his lung heals even halfway decently . . . then physically, yes, he'll survive. The neurogenic shock should subside in a few weeks, and he shouldn't have any lasting paralysis. Neurologically speaking . . ." The doctor hesitated. "It's too early to say. He's already recovered far more ground than any of us thought possible, but the fact is, ischemic damage remains. He was without oxygen for a long time. That damage looks minimal on scans, but could still lead to functional impairment. We won't know until he's regained consciousness."

Ice started flowing through his veins instead of blood, and Bozer buried his trembling hands in his armpits. He hadn't dared let himself think that far ahead. Allowing himself to hope that Mac might survive at all was terrifying enough. If Mac could walk and talk, but wasn't himself . . . if he remembered, if he knew what he'd lost –

If he couldn't . . . couldn't think like he used to, solve problems, help people –

 _Then I will take care of him,_ Bozer snapped at his brain. _And I will make it so that every day he has something to look forward to._ He blinked a few times, and forced himself to take a slow breath.

 _I gotchu, Mac. I'm gonna make this right._

Matty didn't seem to be dwelling on it. "Then, optimistically speaking, when do you think that could be?"

The doctor's voice was cautious. "As I said, right now he's still in a coma. Best case scenario, that coma would gradually lighten on its own over the course of the next several days. However, we'd still keep him in a therapeutic coma while he started to recover and heal. He's going to be in a lot of discomfort, and we can't medicate him effectively until we're sure his kidneys and liver can tolerate it."

Discomfort.

Which meant pain.

"Is he-" Wilt swallowed, and tried again. Forced himself to look at the doctor. "Is he in pain right now?"

Henrik solemnly shook his head. "No. We're giving him what we can, and he's still too deep to be aware of much. If he makes it through the next forty-eight hours, we'll sit down with you and come up with a longer term pain management plan."

Bozer nodded, stiltedly. "When can I see him?"

"He'll be transferred back to his room here in the STICU when they finish up with him in Cardiology." Teuling glanced around the room. "Infection protocols are still in place. Anyone who enters his room will need to follow the same procedure that you were before. I can't stress this enough. The slightest setback at this point could be fatal."

The constant reminders just kept pricking him, slicing right into his heart. "Are you sure that – that this isn't a temporary thing? It's not just because of –"

Of what I did. What I told you to do.

The doctor stepped back up to him, like it was just the two of them in the room, and lowered his voice a little. "If this was a temporary response, it would have been much weaker, and we would already know. His reflexes are getting better, not worse." Henrik paused, like he was waiting for something. Maybe waiting to make sure it was sinking in.

Bozer offered another faint nod, and the doctor nodded back.

"I don't think we'll ever know if the rewiring of that part of his brain was a result of the clinical trial, or if it was spontaneous, but I _can_ tell you that we were right on the edge of the drug's viability window. And I don't believe that anything less than a near-fatal event would have been sufficient to re-awaken his brainstem. Mr. Bozer – Wilt – I . . . don't want to presume," he backtracked a little, "but if you're experiencing feelings of doubt or guilt about the decision you made this morning, you shouldn't."

There was no judgement in the doctor's expression. Just intensity of belief.

"Had you waited even until this evening, or chosen to transfer him to a facility in the United States, he would have been too weak to survive that triggering event. He's still very sick, he may yet succumb to his injuries and infection, but now that he's fighting _with_ us, he has a chance. The decision you made . . . it gave him that chance."

Teuling let that statement settle, but the words just echoed emptily in Bozer's ears. _The decision you made gave him that chance_. That sentence didn't mean anything. A chance to . . . to die in pain, as opposed to unaware? To survive with brain damage? To wake up in a week, back to his old self again?

Every outcome was overwhelming, and Wilt couldn't face any of them.

The doctor turned back to the room at large. "The care team is in the process of reviewing his most recent test results. If we find anything else of note, Dr. Meijer will communicate that information to you." He paused, and Bozer saw him give Jack an evaluatory look. "I understand that two of you are being discharged today. You may continue using this space, as well as the waiting area, as needed during visiting hours." His eyes cut back to Wilt. "You will remain our primary point of contact."

He wasn't asking. He was telling.

Bozer nodded, then unwrapped himself and patted his back pocket, to make sure his phone was still there. And not cracked in half because he'd slept on it.

That wasn't likely to happen again anytime soon.

"Very good. We'll come find you as soon as we know anything more."

-M-

"Director Webber," Jill stammered, quickly adjusting her headset. "Uh, good afternoon. I - wasn't expecting to hear from you for a few hours."

Her boss looked about the same as the last time she'd seen her – vaguely unhappy, but upright and moving. She was sitting in one of the aircraft's more comfortable seats, rather than in front of the tech bay's much higher resolution setup, and her eyes weren't even on the camera, they were on her tablet. Jill hastily tabbed over to the most recent logistics report. That was probably what had her boss's attention.

She was back on the Phoenix jet, which meant she was headed back to LA. Which meant she was officially back in charge.

"Jill," Webber finally acknowledged. "It's six am in Los Angeles."

Jill blinked at her, then up at the clocks on the wall. "Yes ma'am," she confirmed, not quite sure what –

"You were still responding to messages four hours ago," the director noted, attention still on her own tablet. "You are aware we're only paying you for one shift a day?"

"Y-yes ma'am."

"When you and I finish this call, I don't want to hear from you for eight hours. Is that clear?"

Jill nodded. "Yes ma'am."

Matty finally looked up, her heavy liner making her eyes look even darker than they were. ". .. have you been hanging out with Carter? Knock it off already."

The next 'yes ma'am' was on her lips before she realized that was what the director was objecting to. "Yes m-Matty. I have," she added quickly. Technically, she _had_ been hanging out with Josh Carter. And the doctors Talbot, and if she hadn't, she wouldn't have heard the good news. "I – received your last request. Simmons and his team, along with Jack, Riley, and Bozer, are all booked into the Courtyard at Amsterdam Arena Atlas, for the next two days. You should know . . ." She trailed off, skimming her emails for the information she wanted. "Agent Simmons reported that there are two men watching the hotel. He thinks they belong to Dutch intelligence."

Matty's expression didn't really change. "Harlan," she mused. "Confirm that, the last thing we need is a shootout in the local Marriot."

"Yes – I will."

Her boss said nothing about the near miss. "And be subtle about it. If Wolff's subordinates are just being polite, I don't want to draw his attention there."

Jill nodded, making a mental note to have Liz follow up on that. "Jack's discharge went through while you were taking off. You'll be notified when they leave the medical center for the hotel."

She imagined that was going to be a fun conversation. While they'd had agents as patients in the hospital, they'd had twenty-four hour access. Phoenix agents would still secure the STICU floor to provide protection for MacGyver, but the hospital administration had been clear that no one would be spending the night in Mac's treatment room but Mac. Which meant that for the first time since they'd gotten there, they were essentially going to have to adhere to visiting hours.

Bozer was still a fully functional agent, and could join Simmons' team on security detail, but Riley and Jack were on medical leave. They were going to have to leave the hospital – and Mac – for the next couple nights at least. Jack was unlikely to take that news well.

Especially now, now that Mac might –

Might actually recover.

They'd gotten the news as soon as the hospital had updated Mac's chart. That supportive care had been resumed pending additional tests. She'd stayed in Medical for the next two hours, watching the doctors Talbot studying test results as they came in in real time, before she'd fallen asleep on the couch. Carter had woken her an hour ago to news that Mac was not only still alive, but showing significant improvement. He wasn't out of the woods, not by a long shot, but there was finally hope, where there had been none before.

It was better than a coffee to get her up and moving, and still at the office to be caught working by her boss.

Said boss heaved an audible sigh, then tried to roll her head despite the restrictive neck brace. ". . . set up an alert. I want to know if Dalton moves outside a five block radius of the hotel and medical center."

Jill started typing before she realized what Matty was asking her to do. ". . . do you expect a problem?" And why would Jack go wandering around Amsterdam when Mac was still in the hospital . . .?

The director was uncharacteristically quiet. "I don't know," she finally decided. "But if one pops up, I want to know about it immediately."

The analyst finished setting up the alert, configuring it to go directly to Matty's phone. "Medical will be ready and waiting for Agents Folami and Tunne." Agents Saito and Keung were going to be spared the physical – Saito hadn't been injured, and Keung only had a sprained knee. Jill had also arranged for Patience to be picked up at the airport and taken directly to her son's soccer game, but she didn't feel that was a detail she needed to trouble the director with. "Also, you should be getting a call from Director Bosch sometime in the next half-hour."

If she hadn't been so utterly exhausted, she would have dug a little into why the State Department was being so persistent. However, her task was not so much related to the American State Department as it was the Turkish.

Which, of course, was Matty's very next question. "Where have you gotten with Iris's contact in Turkish intelligence?"

Jill just shook her head. "I'm sorry, director. We're still looking."

"Well look faster," she ordered flatly. "Bring Riley in if you have to, see if she recognizes any faces or voices. The longer that contact remains on the loose, the more likely someone will make a play for one of my agents."

"Yes, director," Jill said automatically, then winced. "I-I mean-"

"After you take eight hours," Matty interrupted. "Get some sleep, Specs. You're no use to me running on empty."

"I will," she promised. Then she hesitated. "About . . . Mac, is he . . .?"

Matty fixed the camera with a dispassionate look. "Luka Morrow was taken off life support and died of his injuries at 9:07 this morning. He never regained consciousness. That should tie things up with State. Assign it to another analyst on your way out."

For a second, Jill was afraid Matty wasn't going to directly answer her question, and indeed her attention returned to the tablet in her hand.

"As for Mac . . ." She trailed off. "He's fighting, and he's made some headway. We'll know in forty-eight hours. First thing when you get back, I need you to look into facilities here in the United States. They'll need top secret and sensitive compartmented clearance. The only ones I know of are in Quantico and Arlington. Find our boy something closer."

Jill waited expectantly, but Matty didn't say anything else.

"Yes . . . uh . . . what kind of facility?"

Matty looked back into the camera, her eyebrows shooting up. "Rehabilitation," she said, as if it was obvious. "We have no idea what condition he's going to be in when he comes around. Or what kind of care he'll need. He'll have to be transferred back to the States before the induced coma is lifted, we can't risk him saying anything to civilian doctors outside our jurisdiction."

Oh. Right.

Webber fixed the camera with a penetrating look. "What kind of facility did you think I meant?"

Jill did a very good job of not biting her lip. "I . . . wasn't sure of Agent MacGyver's status . . ."

During the op, their attention had been elsewhere, but now that the op was moving into cleanup, the question arose –

What was going to happen to MacGyver? He'd been compromised, blackmailed into releasing a known terrorist – and had actually done it. It was an unsanctioned op. People had died. Which was just as concerning as the attack on Matty – and triggering Myrrh in order to further convince Aydin's men that they had succeeded. That had had far reaching implications, it had been communicated to several of the top intelligence networks, many thousands of dollars had been spent largely on wild goose chases, and securing men and women who Phoenix knew were in no immediate danger.

There were going to be consequences. Jill figured Director Webber was at least fifteen moves ahead of her, and she didn't question her boss's decisions for an instant. She was more relieved than she could say that the director wanted MacGyver in a medical care facility, rather than –

Than the other places rogue agents were housed.

And of course this was all predicated on the idea that Mac was going to survive, and not just survive, but still –

Be himself. Be Mac.

"MacGyver is an active agent who was injured during the performance of his duties as assigned." It sounded cross. "Right now that's the only status that matters."

Jill nodded quickly and kept her mouth shut.

Matty glared at the camera another long moment, but Jill was fairly certain the scowl wasn't meant for her. "Get that kicked off and hit the sack. I'll call you in eight hours."

"Yes, director," she said, then winced again.

The video chat disconnected.

-M-

There was a knock at the door.

Riley scrutinized herself in the mirror, then grabbed a hair band and exited the bathroom, pulling her damp hair into a simple ponytail. Despite recognizing the knock – and the swagger with which it was delivered – Riley glanced through the peephole to find it showed only darkness. She smirked, then threw back the catch and pulled opened the heavy door to find a freshly showered Jack Dalton leaning on the jamb, his left pointer finger hanging in midair.

He gave her an admonishing look. "Riles, I coulda been anybody –"

She scoffed and turned back to the room, knowing he would follow. "No one does it like you, old man." After a quick trip back into the bathroom to kick her used towel under the sink bench and pocket her phone, Riley hit the light and found Jack had indeed let himself in and was surveying the room. She imagined it looked just like his, two full beds and a crappy little desk by an even crappier little window. Riley had made sure the blinds and blackout curtains had been pulled, as well as swept it for bugs, before she'd hopped in the shower.

It was as secure as any other hotel room she'd stayed in during an op.

And apparently it passed muster, because Jack didn't say anything else about it. "Soon as Boze is outta the shower, I thought we'd all go downstairs and grab some dinner." Jack parked himself gingerly on the foot of one of the beds, coddling his sling, and his gaze eventually fell on the TV perched on the dresser.

Instead of the usual HBO or local news, the TV was displaying output from her laptop. It could have been any medical drama, except the camera angles never changed, and the subject never moved. There'd been a nurse in there when she'd ducked into the shower, but now he was alone.

Despite what had happened earlier in the day, the view was the same as it had always been. Mac was still in a coma. He was still on a ventilator, still on dialysis, still with a central line attached to a veritable Christmas tree of an IV stand. Still had his external pacemaker attached, just in case. He'd looked exactly the same when they left him an hour ago as he had when they'd marched in that morning to watch him die.

And even though he had no idea they were there, in the room or otherwise, she just couldn't bring herself to stop watching the camera feeds.

Somehow it felt like doing something.

Jack stared at the image on the TV for a long moment. "You hangin' in there?"

Riley kicked her shoes against the wall, so she wouldn't trip over them later, then sprawled on the other bed. It was clear Jack was still talking to her, and not the screen. After all, they could see that Mac was. "Long day," she said, instead of answering.

"Yeah." Jack sounded more than drained. "Been quite a few of 'em recently."

A companionable silence descended, then, just the two of them and the TV, and after a few minutes, Riley rolled onto her side and fished her phone out of her back pocket. "In case Bozer texts," she said, by way of explanation, but Jack hadn't taken his eyes off the screen.

Of course he hadn't. Watching Mac was his actual, literal job.

" . . . thanks," she added softly, rolling back into her original position and placing her phone on her stomach.

"For what?"

The ceiling was white popcorn, and she studied the random texture of all the little plaster bits. "For today."

He gave a low, humorless chuckle. "Today was all Mac."

She shook her head, feeling her hair grinding a little into the duvet. ". . . no it wasn't."

Ignoring her own feelings about Mac, going into that room to let him go had to have been one of the hardest things Jack had ever done. And there were still no guarantees. Still no answers. Just maybes and guesstimates and ranges. Chances. It had to be killing him at least as much as it was killing her.

She was just so tired of not _knowing_. Of not having the answers. Not one damn thing seemed to be absolute anymore.

Except this. Him.

"I kinda feel like I should be asking _you_ if you wanna talk."

She heard him exhale, but he didn't have the energy to laugh again. "Don't got much to say."

It was her turn to snort. "Really? That might be a first."

"Hey, now." But the protest was pretty mild. It gave her zero warning for what came next. "This was the closest I've ever come to losin' you."

Riley turned her head, looking at him, but he was still facing the TV. In profile, his expression was almost indescribably sad. She slowly sat up.

And Jack didn't say anything else.

Riley just stared at him. ". . . Jack . . . hey. You didn't, okay? Yeah, we've had close calls, but –"

"But I always knew where you were." There was a little waver in his voice, that hadn't been there before. "Even when those hackers stuffed you in the trunk, I knew where you _were._ These guys took you, Riles, and if they'd stashed you _anywhere_ but on that boat, we never woulda found you." He slowly shook his head, eyes still on the screen. "I never woulda found you."

When he said lose, he meant it literally.

Riley wasn't quite sure what to say. "They, uh, they piped fake city noises into the room, to make me think we were in the Middle East. So that I wouldn't try to escape, I guess. Wouldn't realize I was in Europe, that help was just outside." She scooted to the end of the bed, unconsciously tugging on her half-length sleeve. "I figured it out after a couple days. I asked myself what . . . what you and Mac would do. Paid attention to routines, the guards. Tried to keep everything they gave me, 'cause I knew-"

 _I knew Mac would be able to use that stuff to escape, which meant that I could too._

"I would have gotten myself out of there, Jack. Okay?" She stared him down, until he finally tore his eyes away from the TV, and dragged them down to her. "You're not going to lose me. Just like you're not gonna lose Mac."

He smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes. "Riles . . . I'm sorry. It shouldn't'a taken what happened this mornin' to get me to get my shit together. I don't wanna pressure ya, you'll come talk to me when you're good and ready, but I – I need you to know somethin'." His brown eyes were starting to fill, and Riley didn't let him finish. She slipped from her bed to his, and carefully wrapped him up, sling and all, in her arms.

"I know," she told him, and squeezed him a little tighter when she felt him shudder. "I know."

His good arm came around her and held her close. "I was so scared, Riles," he whispered, his voice hoarse. "We couldn't hear shit in that helo, I – you called me, an' I couldn't get there-"

"Not the way I remember it." She swallowed hard, trying not to think of infrared on the satellite, a figure in yellows and oranges jerking again and again in time to gunshots over coms. "I called, and you sent Matty, Harlan, and the whole damn Dutch police force to come get me."

Whatever he tried to say next, she couldn't make it out, and Riley leaned into his neck.

"Listen to me, Jack. Listen. Okay? I get it. It's like – me and Elwood. Right? He's in my life, but he's not changing what you are to me. Just like Mac doesn't change what I mean to you." His arm tightened around her, as if he was afraid she was going to pull away. She did nothing of the sort. "You're not playing favorites, Jack, okay? You never have. We know that. _I_ know that."

The idea that Jack was blaming himself for the way she was behaving – it made her feel like shit. She'd never thought for a second that Mac had in any way replaced her, or changed the way Jack felt about her. Not once. Jack and Mac were – were a lot like Jack and her. He protected them. Cared about them. Thought of her as his daughter, just like he thought of Mac as some messed up combo of brother and son. It had never occurred to her to be jealous, or think Jack didn't love her as much, considered her a lower priority.

That was just downright stupid.

Instead of joining him in the tears department, Riley managed to laugh. "I mean, I'm super pumped that I'm sharing a room with Jada instead of you . . ."

He chuckled too – at least a little bit – and she snugged him hard, then leaned back so she could see his face. "She has way less hair product than you do."

If she was being honest, she didn't really know her new roommate well at all. Just that she was handpicked for Simmons' tactical team, that she was a night owl, and that she was the kind of badass little kids dreamed of becoming. She was currently one of the two agents Simmons had keeping watch on Mac at the hospital, and that meant she and Riley would almost never be using the room at the same time. It would head off any unwelcome questions about any marks or bruises on body parts other than her arms, and it meant she could stay up watching that camera feed as late as she wanted.

Jack took the out for what it was. "What're you tryin' to say? It takes hard work and effort to look like this, Riles-"

"Like you just rolled out of a dumpster?" She patted his good shoulder and got up, intent on her shoes. "At least the smell's an improvement."

Jack took an exaggerated whiff of himself. "Yeah, who doesn't love smellin' like a walkin' basket of citrus fruit." Then he scrubbed his face with a sigh. "I see you're lookin' more like yourself," he added, and then gestured vaguely in her direction.

Riley glanced down at herself. Slightly distressed jeans, a half-sleeve length v-neck, and her trusty Kodiak Alma boots. Simmons had had the foresight to grab their go-bags before he'd hopped on the plane to Amsterdam, and it felt . . . safer, somehow, being back in her own clothes.

She'd spent the last two weeks in someone else's, in more ways than one.

Her phone chimed, saving her from what promised to be an awkward and ultimately pointless conversation on fashion, and Riley scooped it up off the other bed. "Boze is ready, wants to know where you are."

Jack sucked down a deep breath, then pushed himself to his feet. "Tell him to meet us out in the hallway."

Riley kept one eye on the cameras in the hall, and then in the elevator as they collected an equally exhausted Bozer and went down to the ground floor, knowing that Phoenix was watching from afar. It was after nine pm, which meant the hotel restaurant was closed and food service would be operating solely out of the hotel bar. It wasn't a bad bar, considering it was a Marriott chain and most of those barely had hot continental breakfast back in the States, but it was hardly a hip millennial hangout. There were a few people seated around the bar itself, and two other couples spread out among the small tables and booths.

Riley let Jack pick their table, and wasn't surprised when neither of her dining partners ordered alcohol. They didn't need to be super vigilant, Simmons had left an agent on them, but somehow the idea of bourbon or beer just didn't appeal to her.

Agent Ramirez was officially their protection, and he was camped out at the bar casually sipping on something Riley knew wasn't alcoholic, being chatted up by a leggy brunette. The toe of the woman's Italian pump was running playfully up the back of Ricardo's calf, and Riley smirked.

 _Good luck with that, sister._

Wilt had picked up a menu and was staring at it listlessly, but eventually he looked up, then followed her gaze. ". . . she'll figure it out eventually."

Jack, too, roused himself and casually checked things out in the mirror she knew was behind her, and why Jack had chosen that particular table. "Wouldn't count on it. He's kinda a tease."

"Kinda?" The banter sounded flat, and after a few seconds they all fell back into their own thoughts.

It wasn't until they'd all placed an order for food she was pretty sure none of them wanted that Riley decided to break the silence. " . . . so what now?"

Bozer and Jack looked at her almost blankly, so she elaborated. "I mean, Matty's not gonna let us stay here forever. The op's basically done. Isn't she . . . gonna call us back? Like last time?"

After all, the last time she hadn't even let any of the agents leave the building until they'd been debriefed. This time Matty hadn't asked her for much of anything besides a quick run-down of when and how they'd grabbed her, and anything she'd overheard that would help them figure out where the hostages were. Just the basics. No hours of going over every single second, every conversation, every keystroke since the op began.

Even with Mac barely hanging on, surely that was going to happen again. Surely Oversight was going to get involved again. Was already involved again.

And if they'd been out for Mac's blood before, when he'd been tortured for weeks into giving up very basic intelligence, what were they going to do now?

Jack's blink was slow, but nothing about it was relaxed. "You and I will be headin' back in forty-eight hours max. Prolly as soon as they're sure Mac's gonna pull through." There was no question there; the tone of his voice spoke to his surety that it wasn't an if. "Boze, you were with Matty the whole time, right?"

Wilt seemed to shake himself out of his stupor, and nodded. ". . . yeah. Went to her place after the Maroon Berets hit it, and from there straight to the jet. She didn't leave til Mac was already en route to the hospital."

"Good." When they both looked at him, Jack cocked an eyebrow. "Means they won't bring Boze in until they've debriefed Matty. You'll get to stay here longer than us, you can keep an eye on Mac."

Wilt gave a tired nod.

"When they do bring you in . . . it'll be serious." The warning in his tone made her straighten in her chair. "Way more intense than any debrief you two've been through. This is congressional hearing level shit." He hesitated. ". . . you can't help her this time."

It took Riley a second to untangle that. "Help Matty?"

The pause, between her question and his answer, told her everything she needed to know. "Last time she had a decent hand. This time she's on defense, and she don't have an ace up her sleeve like 'savin' an entire country from civil war and genocide'."

Riley knew she didn't have the whole picture, but it was hard to imagine a scenario where Matty hadn't thought everything through. "Jill just sent me some dossiers, she thinks there's still someone high up in Turkish intelligence we haven't identified yet. That's gotta be worth something, right?"

"If we can prove it." Wilt leaned back a little against the bench, ignoring the coke in front of him. "She told the State Department that she green-lit the op. That Mac came to her and told her he'd been approached, and she ordered him to go ahead."

Jack frowned, not looking terribly surprised, and Riley replayed that in her head. "Okay . . . so that gives her another good reason to have enacted Myrrh."

"Yeah, but she-" He dropped his voice to a near whisper. "She covered up the attack at her house. Like, didn't tell anyone she'd gotten hurt. She-" He hesitated, then licked his bottom lip. "She was really hurt. Like, surgery hurt. And that was before she fell –"

"Boze." Jack was shaking his head, just slightly. "You need to think long and hard about what you saw and heard. You _cannot_ lie in there. They can and will charge you and _trust_ me, that's not the kinda battle you can win. You get me?"

Riley stared at Jack incredulously. Was he really saying what she thought he was saying?

Bozer was thinking along the same line. "Jack, I'm not gonna go in there and tell 'em Matty lied to 'em!"

"Matty's gonna do everything she can to protect her agents," Jack cut him off smoothly. "That means you can't turn around and do the same." Then he looked directly at her. "Same goes for you. No bullshit. They're gonna ask you questions, stuff you might not be comfortable tellin' 'em. Not just about what went down on that boat, but what you saw when we took the convoy. Even if what you or someone else did was illegal, trackin' down that phone, even if you hacked our allies to get that info, you tell 'em. Don't – volunteer shit they don't ask for," he amended. "But don't you dare tell 'em something that ain't true, and don't omit important information."

Bozer looked a little shellshocked, and she could hardly blame him. "But, Jack –"

"No buts. Everything that happened, from you goin' to that conference up to those hostages being found, that's fair game. You hear me?"

She looked at him. Really looked at him. "So . . . kinda like last time, then?" she asked carefully.

Last time she'd been told to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – up to the point where they'd flown back to the United States. Everything she'd done after that, helping them find Mac, that had been a different story.

Kinda like now. Just hanging out in a hotel, op was over, there'd be no reason to question her about what she was doing besides staying with Mac.

Jack cracked the smallest smile. "Yeah. Kinda like that."

So she had forty-eight hours to find something that could help Matty. And Bozer had forty-eight hours to figure out what the hell he was going to say.

Which would be much easier if he knew what Matty was going to say. And since she was being debriefed first –

Then it was just a question of getting a copy of the deposition for Bozer to review before he went in. Getting a copy in such a way as they would never know anyone accessed it.

Riley was already five steps into her plan to set up a secret share on the network and obfuscating the creation date when Bozer huffed a quiet sigh.

"You think Matty and Harlan are on the same page? He had to know some of this stuff –"

"Harlan's as clean cut as they come." Jack shut him down hard. "Whatever Wolff passes along, it'll be absolutely above board."

They all fell silent as the food arrived, and Riley was not surprised when no one made an immediate move to pick up a fork. Over Jack's shoulder, she could see that the woman had given up on Ramirez and moved on to the next man at the bar, and that the Phoenix agent was very casually not looking their way.

"The next few weeks are gonna be tough." Jack met both their eyes. "The State Department and the UN's involved, which means Oversight is too. Just tell the truth. Neither of you did anything wrong."

Riley didn't miss how he didn't include himself – or Mac – in that statement.

-M-

Hello all! Sorry about the long hiatus, but it's all done now and this story should be back on track. I had to go back and read the last couple chapters, so just to catch us all up – Mac's brain has kicked back in, but he's still in a coma, and not out of the woods just yet. Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Matty is flying home to start the process of handling the fallout, and unlike last time, this one's going to be a little harder to explain. Jack, Bozer, and Riley are still in Amsterdam, watching over Mac, and also starting to realize that there are going to be consequences – and Riley's determined to do something about them.


	24. Chapter 24

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

 **ONE WEEK LATER**

It was one of the most gentle landings Bozer had ever experienced. On the gurney, strapped tight to the wall, Mac's head barely even moved.

Of course, he was positioned so that the plane's hard deceleration wouldn't stress his chest and lungs too much; they'd repositioned him after takeoff, so that now his feet were pointing at the cockpit. He'd been shifted throughout the flight so that g-forces never put too much pressure on his injuries.

The last time they'd flown from Europe with Mac in a medical bay, he'd been in much better shape. He'd even regained consciousness partway through that flight. This time, the three Dutch clinicians had made damn sure that wasn't even a possibility. And sure enough, from his position near Mac's face, he could see that his roomie hadn't even flinched. Certainly hadn't tried to open his eyes.

"Well, we're here," he told Mac, somewhat unnecessarily, as the pilot let off the brakes and allowed the small, specialized aircraft to coast down the long runway before gradually banking left.

"I'd like to say you're home, but we're in Colorado," Boze continued softly, keeping his seatbelt secured, just like the two nurses and doctor seated nearby. "Jack wasn't too excited about that until he realized we have to drive through Vegas on our way to visit you."

Not that they'd be driving all that frequently. Or flying. And least not anytime soon.

"I gotta admit, it's kinda nice to fly in a plane without your ears poppin'." At least his hadn't. Much, anyway. The cabin was kept at a higher pressure at altitude than commercial airlines. Just like the air being fed through Mac's special ventilator was not only oxygen-rich, but humidified to make up for the typical dryness of recirculated air.

"I could get used to this. I-I mean, present circumstances suck," he added quickly. "And the in-flight meal was a sandwich, the microwave is apparently 'for medical use only'." A lesson he had learned extremely quickly at the cost of half a cup of cold coffee. "But I guess I never noticed how much bein' on a regular plane impacts your body."

And how dangerous the barometric pressure changes could be for someone on a ventilator, with a freshly healing hole in their right lung. Since the medical personnel that had met them in New York for the last leg of the flight weren't currently losing their minds, he was pretty sure Mac had come through like a champ.

Damn right he did.

Just like he was bouncing back from the sepsis and the organ failure. His white cell count still wasn't awesome, but it had been good enough to have Meijer green-light the flight and transfer, and the next stage of his recovery was going to take place in a city Mac had actually talked about visiting – Grand Junction. Vineyards, hiking, kayaking, and museums. He'd been threatening to take a long weekend there for a while –

Since Nikki, actually.

 _Well, let's hope this visit's a little more auspicious than that_ , Bozer told himself firmly, and took his cue from the nurses when they unfastened their seatbelts.

"Gotta punch the clock, holmes," he murmured, then laid his hand on Mac's shoulder, one of the few places that wasn't completely mummified with blankets and straps. He knew his bestie was too under to feel it, but he hoped that Mac knew, on some level, that he was around.

Then he got the hell out of the way of the nurses, checked that his firearm was still safe in its holster, and did a visual sweep of the tarmac as they taxied toward a special ramp on wheels, parked near a conventional-looking ambulance.

He had all the personnel photo on his phone, and had memorized them hours ago. The three medical staff on board the plane were on loan from the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and they'd just been there to care for Mac during the New York to Grand Junction leg. They were supposed to be meeting four people now – two EMTs, a nurse, and a driver. And sure enough, at least the hair color matched for the four figures Wilt could see waiting near the ambulance.

There was no one else immediately around, but it was a fairly busy regional airport, and there was plenty of activity. They'd taxied to the private hangar area, and there were too many sniping positions to count. Considering how secret this transfer had been, and the fact that Aydin's guys – if any were still alive and on the warpath – didn't have their hacker anymore, Wilt figured the odds of one of the Turks showing up to get revenge was fairly low. So he gave the copilot a nod, allowing him to open the door, and he buttoned his suit jacket before he took the six stairs to the pavement.

And that was pretty much it. He watched the medical teams exchange handshakes and compare notepads, doubtlessly giving the new team any updates or changes to Mac's vitals over the flight, and then they opened up the cargo door and drove the ramp up. Transferring the patient went without issue, as did a quick swap to a mobile ventilator. The entire thing took around ten minutes, and no one approached them or did anything that seemed in any way suspicious.

Or at least, there was no fleet of shady black SUVs full of shady people in black suits.

In fact, he was the shadiest one there. Everyone else was in uniforms, though not quite as pressed and polished as Bozer had expected, given the exclusive nature of the medical facility where Mac would be recovering. Diplomats, visiting ambassadors, even presidents had been treated here, and they were the closest facility with the clearance level to offer the type of services everyone was afraid Mac was going to need.

He wondered if those doctors had ever been exposed to the level of black marker he knew decorated the pages of the fat file that was being transported with Mac, literally strapped to his gurney with him. Bozer knew a copy had been sent digitally, but due to the nature of their patients, the facility's systems were largely non-networked, and a physical copy had been requested along with the electronic.

It contained far more than Mac's medical record.

The heavily redacted folder detailed Mac's cognitive test scores, from MIT forward. His level of competency in every test that DXS, and later the Phoenix, had thrown at him as a certified agent. Personal notes from his instructors, superiors, and peers. Everything someone who didn't know Mac from a hole in the wall would need to assess his mental and physical capabilities.

Honestly he wasn't sure how helpful it was going to be. Even if every word had been left in the clear, it still didn't paint the picture of who Angus MacGyver was, and what he was capable of. And Wilt was more than a little afraid that someone, seeing all that marker, would assume the redactions were due to the nature of the ops Mac had worked. That he was like Jack Dalton, who Boze was sure had a thick, mostly black personnel file of his own. He was afraid they'd assume Mac was a criminal, or at best some kind of government assassin.

That he was the lawbreaker that Bozer had accused him of being on the back deck, three endless weeks ago. That he was dangerous.

Mac wouldn't hurt a fly, but Boze felt his allegation still had merit. Mac was definitely _not_ a rule follower. His doctors would figure that out the first time Mac decided he wasn't in the mood to go along with their routine, and the thought made Wilt grin broadly.

Which he was still doing when he opened the passenger door to the cab and slapped eyes on the driver. Who was definitely _not_ grinning, or smiling in any way.

"We got it from here, agent," the driver – Jeffrey Nolan – said dismissively, jotting something down on his clipboard. "Sign on the X."

The clipboard was shoved his way, at about eye level, and Bozer gave the guy what he hoped was a polite and polished 'hell no' look. "Uh, thank you, _Jeffrey_ , but my orders are to see the patient to St. Mary-Dismas. And-" Boze made a show of glancing around the tarmac, "unless your state of the art medical facility is an ambulance, I'm pretty sure this isn't the place."

The driver blinked at him. Bozer held his gaze and did not.

He got an annoyed shrug. "Fine, agent. Hop in, enjoy the ride." The clipboard was shoved back into its holder, and then Jeffrey rapped on the wall behind him. "We got a live one!" he called, throwing the ambulance into gear, and Bozer barely had his feet on the running plate before the vehicle was in motion.

Vaguely irritated, Wilt settled in and closed the door just as the driver toggled on the siren. In the cab, it was at a bearable volume, and Bozer gave Jeffrey Nolan one more glare before he turned in his seat and glanced into the back.

All he could see was the top of Mac's head, but he was well secured, and a monitor built into the wall of the ambulance showed good stats. The nurse was busy charting on a tablet, and the two EMTs were in their jump seats, heads down as they murmured quietly to one another. There was no one else back there, and Bozer straightened and buckled his seat belt.

Jeffrey showed zero interest in small talk, and the drive to St. Mary-Dismas Medical Center took the twenty-two minutes Waze said it would. Grand Junction was a bigger town than Bozer had initially thought, and there was a lot of pedestrian traffic and dogs on leashes. They passed multiple parks and other green spaces, and Bozer found it hard to concentrate on the traffic and remind himself he wasn't on a sightseeing tour.

This was an op. He was assigned this protection detail, and there was a reason Phoenix Oversight had insisted on it. Regardless of any retaliation from what was left of Aydin's guys, there was a badly compromised intelligence agent in the back of that bus, and even in a light coma, he was worth millions to the right people.

And for being such a fancy-pants facility, Bozer was simply not impressed with the level of customer service he'd seen so far. Yes, these were the right people, with the right words painted on the side of the ambulance, but this was the way they treated diplomats and ambassadors?

Yet Jeffrey, for all his lack of charm, guided the ambulance along the approved route with zero detours, and they arrived on campus exactly when they were supposed to. He silenced the siren, completely ignoring Bozer, and cruised around the large, circular courtyard. Patients in bright blue scrubs and gowns were parked snug in their wheelchairs along the paths and butterfly gardens, staring off into space, and only a few actually turned their heads to follow their progress.

Bozer's heart sank a little, at the idea that maybe the next time he drove up, Mac would be in one of those chairs. Staring off at nothing.

 _Not gonna happen, homie. Get it together,_ he chided himself, and then they'd cleared the main entrance and eased around to a large, covered bay, easily wide enough for four ambulances. Jeffrey put them into reverse and used the mirrors, rather than the camera, to judge his distance to the dock.

Bozer felt his eyebrows bunch as he took in the huge space. "Uh, you have a high patient turnover here?"

Jeffrey gave him a blank look. "Y'mean do a lot of people die?"

It hadn't occurred to him. Maybe the bay was that big so that the funeral home guys had ample parking.

". . . yeah," Bozer murmured. "Yeah. Lose a lotta patients?"

The driver gave him a second look, like he couldn't believe Wilt had actually replied, and threw the ambulance into park. " . . . it's called Mary-Dismas for a reason, _agent_. We're here. Front desk'll call you a taxi back to the airport."

Then Jeffrey killed the engine and slipped out.

Bozer followed suit, bounding up the short flight of stairs nearby, and observed as three staff members exploded out of a pair of double doors, two of them wheeling a mobile ventilator. Again, there was a quick greeting and an exchange of information – and rather than handing their EMT pads over, they actually asked for the information and duplicated it on their own tablets – and Mac was carefully wheeled out of the ambulance. His ventilator was swapped from the ambulance's smaller version to the hospital's larger one, and the third nurse who'd appeared with the other two started visually checking the medication hanging from the gurney's pole.

Once she was finished, quick nods were given all around, and the nurses immediately began wheeling Mac away.

No one said a word to Boze. He might as well have been landscaping.

Which suited him just fine. He didn't say anything to them, either, just quietly followed them through the double doors. They entered the mantrap and the lead nurse badged in without turning, so Bozer continued with them into the facility.

It was a lot closer to what he'd been expecting.

Wide, white hallways opened up in either direction, with pale oak doors at regular intervals. There were florida windows to let in as much natural light as possible, and while the clinicians visible were wearing very comfortable-looking, colorful scrubs, they were smiling and their voices sounded pleasant and professional as they interacted with one another. Mac's team turned him to the right, and once again, Bozer silently tagged along. Right up until they turned a wide corner towards another pair of double doors, this one flanked by two enormous, clean-shaven men in white scrubs. They looked like orderlies, if orderlies were built like linebackers and had state of the art tasers on their hips.

And, if he wasn't mistaken, the angle of the fabric gathered at their ankles meant they had backup guns strapped on.

One of the men nodded a greeting at the party and waved the back of his hand in front of an unmarked section of the wall. The double doors behind them opened at once, and Bozer gave the guy's watch a closer look as he followed. It looked like a normal Fitbit, but if it was, then how the hell had he just opened the door –

"Your badge, sir," the other man said, stepping directly into Bozer's path as the gurney cleared it.

Wilt gave the orderly an imperious look. "I'm security for the patient –"

"Your badge, sir," the orderly repeated, in a slightly harder tone, and Wilt winced inwardly. Technically his orders had only been to get Mac here, and that probably did mean he wasn't authorized to go back into patient treatment areas, but –

"I'm also the patient's power of attorney," he said, keeping his voice clipped and professional. "I need to assess the facilities and treatment plan." After all, the docs in Amsterdam had drilled into his head his responsibilities when it came to making impossible decisions on behalf of someone else, and those responsibilities came with rights.

In Amsterdam. He had no damn idea if the same rights applied in the United States. Hell, he wasn't even sure whether the healthcare law in the US was spelled HIPAA or HIPPA.

The mountain of orderly didn't move a muscle. "Facility tours are scheduled with –"

Bozer tried for a disarming smile. "The patient will not be remaining here if I don't find the accommodations acceptable. Perhaps his physician can clear this up."

The other guy moved from his position on the wall. "Firearms are prohibited in the treatment wing. Please see the receptionist at the front desk, and the appropriate party will speak with you."

The doors behind the orderlies began to close.

Bozer weighed his odds, deciding quickly that starting a huge commotion and getting kicked out was not in anyone's best interest. "All right, all right," he acquiesced, raising his hands as the men started to crowd him back. "But you can be sure I'm gonna bring this up with your supervisor, you hear me?"

Neither man looked remotely concerned about that threat, and in their position, he probably wouldn't be either. By the time he'd walked back around the corner to the main hall, a fresh-faced blonde was hurrying – in stiletto heels – down the hallway, and she made a sound that was weirdly like a bird chirping as she arrived in front of him.

"Sir, if you could come this way for me, please and thank you?"

They really weren't taking chances around here.

Bozer unwillingly let himself be led to the reception area, which was a cross between a spa and an uber-modern hotel. There was literally a concierge stand, though for patients or visitors – or both – Bozer couldn't figure out. Everyone in this area was dressed smartly, the picture of professionalism, and after declining cucumber-infused water for the third time, Wilt dusted off that disarming grin and tried again.

"I really need to speak with the physician who will be overseeing care of the patient that was just transported here –"

The blonde's eyebrows started rising, and kept going up as he talked, until he was pretty sure they were just going to disappear into her scalp. "Of course, sir, of course, I will be sure to let that physician know that you're here in reception and you'd like a moment of their time. Please, have a seat, and let me know if there's _anything_ else I can do for you."

You can get me Mac's damn doctor, he didn't say aloud, and settled himself on the weird cubist furniture to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

He let that go for forty minutes, knowing he was flying commercial back to LA and having given himself plenty of time to get Mac settled. In that time, multiple people came into reception, and he started to notice a pattern.

Every visitor without a badge was turned away.

Reception was incredibly creative with their excuses. Patients were receiving treatments, patients were observing group recreational time, patients were under mandatory rest periods. Anyone without a badge and an appointment were turned down. They were offered the opportunity to make an appointment, but they weren't given badges when they did so. They were, however, given chocolates, or little gifts for their inconvenience, or encouraged to write little notes to their loved ones, and sent on their merry way.

In his impatience, Bozer had started to play with the edge of the extremely cube-like seat he'd claimed as his own, and beneath the white upholstery fabric, he found a metallic edge. It was thick and utterly inflexible, even though the cushion that he was sitting on was fairly comfortable. On a whim. Bozer tried to scoot the seat back half an inch, and it didn't budge. Either too heavy, or bolted to the floor.

And that was when Wilt really started to look around.

There were six visible dome cameras, tastefully placed to compliment the décor but also extremely well-placed from a tactical perspective. There were also several cameras positioned between the decorative wall panels, that he only noticed when he caught one repositioning itself, and the lens reflected the light just so. The floor was white mottled marble, in a large diamond pattern flanked by smaller tiles, also in a diamond pattern. There were very thin grout lines, but unless he was mistaken, they were broken at intervals, as if the tiles had either been cracked and replaced, or –

Or moved.

The receptionist's desk was enormous, it looked to be of the same light oak as the doors in the main hallway, and not in direct line of sight of the entranceway and drive. The elegant lighting columns between the drive and the lobby glass were definitely thick enough to stop a car, if they were actually steel. Bozer rolled his head around his collar, as if stretching his neck, and found the well-hidden flaps above the floor to ceiling windows, hiding either curtains – or more likely something a little more hardcore – that could drop down to cover them.

The circular drive, with its grasses and gardens, afforded plenty of time to see any kind of vehicle-borne threat approaching long before it made the lobby.

It wasn't a spa or a hotel. It was a damn fortress.

"Sir?"

She had to repeat it twice before Wilt realized the young blonde was talking to him, and he rose from the chair – again, trying to move it, and again, failing – and gave her a tight smile. She returned it, a little apologetically. "I'm sorry, sir, but –"

"The patient is in a mandatory group recreational resting treatment session," he finished with false politeness. "I've heard all the excuses already. I am that patient's power of attorney, and I'm not leaving until I speak with his physician."

The woman blinked at him. "I, ah, I'm sorry sir, I – just wanted to tell you it would be another ten minutes before Dr. Parsons would be with you . . ?"

There was no recovering from that, and Boze didn't even try. "Oh. Uh, thanks."

Then he turned around and went quietly back to his impossibly heavy reinforced cube chair and sat.

It was fourteen minutes, not ten, before a brunette Wilt hadn't seen yet popped out of a side door. There was now another gentleman waiting in the reception area, but she didn't so much as glance at him, fixing Wilt with an assessing look. "Will you please follow me?" she inquired, with a hint of a British accent, and Bozer popped up and did just that.

This was a much more narrow hallway – administration, clearly – but still looked rather spa-like, with frosted glass doors that led to unlabeled offices, and it was into one of these that he was deposited with a cool 'wait here.' It was clearly an office, and just as clearly the office of a pediatrician. Colorful, thick throw rugs were scattered around the room, in front of shelves and bookcases filled with toys, puzzles, and books. A mirror mobile hung above a dark, rough-hewn wooden coffee table, and the olive green couch behind it looked extraordinarily comfortable, and completely out of place next to the light purple walls.

The physician's desk, however, looked the same as physician desks around the world. Covered in papers. A personal printer was practically buried under printouts, and the laptop actually was, only the three monitors connected to the dock were able to peer over the mess. A wireless keyboard had been tossed carelessly on the credenza behind the desk, on top of a thick stack of paper, and the top sheet, mostly redacted with black marker, finally caught Wilt's attention.

He crossed to the desk in three strides, but even upside down he recognized the Phoenix watermark.

That was Mac's file.

The door behind him whispered open, and Bozer turned on his heels to see a freckled white woman in an immaculate physician's coat breeze into the room.

"Ow, dammit," she declared calmly, and immediately stepped out of her black heels.

Wilt blinked at her, not quite sure how to respond, and the woman didn't miss a beat. She just marched over to a fluffy paisley pastel carpet and dug her bare toes into the thick fabric with a long sigh of relief.

"Uh . . . am I in the right place?" Wilt tried tentatively.

The woman was in her mid to late thirties, and her mousy brown hair was pulled back in a utilitarian ponytail. When she finally opened her eyes and looked at him, he saw that they were an unusual golden green, clear and sharp.

"I don't know, are you?" Sound a little amused, she balanced on the balls of her feet for a moment, stretching them. "You wouldn't happen to know a better way of breaking in pumps than just suffering through wearing them, would you?"

Completely off balance, he answered her automatically. "Uh, yeah. Put 'em under a hairdryer on high for about three minutes, till they're good and hot. Then walk around in 'em until they cool down. That'll make the leather stretch a lot easier and conform to your foot. If they're still too tight, rinse and repeat, but put on a pair of thin socks to stretch 'em out a little more."

The doctor regarded him for a moment, then a little crinkle of skin appeared between her eyes. "Break in a lot of shoes, do you?"

Still not quite sure what was happening, he smiled a little. "You'd be surprised."

"Hmm," she said noncommittally, still curling her toes into the carpet. "So you're the agent who's on security who's also power of attorney."

Remembering himself, he approached her with a hand outstretched. "Wilt Bozer, Dr . . .Parsons?"

"Simone," she corrected, and looked down at his hand, offering her fist instead. "Handshakes spread germs. We fistbump around here."

Wilt hesitated, then complied, and she flashed him a polite smile and crossed the office to her desk. "Have a seat, Wilt, and tell me why you're here."

"I . . ." That was actually a very good question. "I wanted to see the facilities and review the treatment plan."

 _I wanna know what you're gonna do with my bestie while I'm tied up in debriefs for the rest of my life._

"Well, I'm not planning on killing him," she started, searching her mess of a desk. "So I'm not really sure why power of attorney is in question here. Further, the moment he was admitted, it became moot."

Bozer stared at her, and she twirled in her chair like a kid, finally locating what she wanted on the credenza. Her keyboard.

"I'm sorry, what do you mean, moot –"

She plopped the keyboard on top of the most stable pile of papers on her desk. "I mean as of 1400 all medical decisions related to the patient in question fall exclusively under the purview of the United States government. You're . . . not CIA," she trailed off, then licked her bottom lip, and started her search all over again. "You're new . . . right. Phoenix Foundation." She grabbed Mac's file from the credenza – and it took both hands – and slapped it down on her desk.

Boze wasn't about to let that go. "Can I get a little explanation on that 'falls exclusively under the purview of the US government' thing?"

"I mean exactly what I said. Read your contract, sweetie, I'm sure the same goes for you." She flicked through the first few sheets of Mac's file, then swept the rest off her desk directly into the half-full waste paper basket beside it.

What the hell . . .?

"Doctor –"

"Simone," she corrected, this time with a hint of steel, scanning the few sheets of paper she hadn't tossed. "You should see an audiologist about that hearing impairment. If it's neurological, tell them not to refer you back to me. Anything else?"

Bozer cocked his head. "Yeah. You wanna tell me why you just tossed your patient's medical history in the trash?" This time he didn't even try to be friendly. "And then, how about you start explainin' exactly what this facility does."

She eyed him over the pages, looking almost surprised. "They didn't tell you anything, did they." It sounded thoughtful.

"No." He threw himself back in the chair and spread his hands. "How 'bout you kick us off."

If she minded his combative attitude, it didn't show. "Well, Agent, you're sitting in a facility that rehabilitates damaged government assets, be that from traumatic physical or emotional injury, neurological complications from stroke, stress, or disease, hereditary conditions, chemically induced injuries, addiction –" She trailed off. "Essentially, anything that compromises one of Uncle Sam's toys. This facility doesn't exist, the staff doesn't exist, the chair you're sitting in doesn't exist as far as the courts are concerned, so your power of attorney means shit."

She didn't give him time to fully absorb that, let alone ask another question. "As for why I just tossed my patient's medical record, that's what you do with garbage." She motioned with the pages still in her hand. "This file describes who he was. I'm only concerned with who he _is_. In four weeks, Mr. Power of Attorney, I'll be the one telling _you_. My turn."

She tapped the sheets of paper on the only clean edge of her desk, and laid them flat, steepling her fingers over them. "Who are you?"

Bozer balked. "Now who's got a hearin' problem?"

She waved a hand in the air. "Who are you to _him_."

Still not quite sure where she was going with this, he hesitated. "His roommate." Since he'd be the one taking over care, when Mac was discharged, maybe that would mean something –

Parsons rolled her eyes. "Wow, the rent at your place that steep?"

"This isn't about money," Bozer snapped. "We grew up together."

Something changed in her eyes, then. A little of the coolness faded. "Better. Second question – why is he here?"

He snorted. "Well, if you hadn't just chucked his medical record –"

She threw up her hands. "Wilt, Wilt, we were making headway, don't give up on me now. There's a waiting list stretching halfway across the country to get into the neurology ward in this facility, and –" and she glanced back down at the sheet under her hands – "some guy named Angus MacGyver just jumped to the head of it. Why is he _here_."

Damaged government asset.

Did Matty know that, when she'd pulled those strings? Or had that been someone else, been Oversight? The State Department? Were they so scared of what Mac might say? Was he so dangerous to them?

And if he was, if he was somehow . . . different, if they didn't think he could go back to work –

Then what was going to happen to him? In a facility that didn't exist, that was friggin' Fort Knox –

Oh crap. What if they didn't let him out?

Bozer looked at the doctor, who was watching him so closely, and he hesitated. "Am I . . . gonna be able to see him?"

She met his gaze squarely. "No. You want to see the guy you grew up with, and that guy's not here."

Bozer reared his head back. "How can you say that, you haven't even –"

"Examined him? I don't need to. I need to _meet_ him." She leaned forward intently. "And in case that hearing impairment is still an issue, I need _him_ to tell me who he is. I don't need _you_ to tell him who he is. You following me?"

Yes and no. "Fine, I won't tell him anything –"

"You two didn't just grow up together. He's your best friend, practically your brother," she announced impatiently. "You volunteered for the security escort, and made arrangements to be sure you got it. You still don't know what you've walked into, and you're terrified – and not for yourself, but for him. You feel like you made a mistake, and you're at least partly responsible for what's happened to him. You don't want to tell me why he's here because you're not sure yourself, and you think the answer will change the way he's treated. You have told me all of this in the span of the last five minutes simply by your posture. So no. You can't see him, because you have not had the training, and that is not in his best interest."

Bozer fought to keep his voice absolutely steady. "And I'm supposed to just trust that you'll have his best interest at heart?"

She gave him an unexpectedly broad grin. "Hell no. But I do. Tell you what. If that changes, if he tells me that he needs to see a friendly face, I'll be sure to put his power of attorney on that list. But don't get your hopes up. _If_ that happens, it'll be weeks out. Plenty of time for you to take care of whatever it is that's - hanging over your head," she finished lamely. At his look, she shrugged. "Look, I'm good, but body language doesn't exactly read like a pocket planner. Do your job, agent, and let me do mine."

Wilt stared at her, almost speechless. "So that's it? I'm supposed to just walk away now, and hope I get a phone call?"

"Yeah, just like with kids. Terrifying, isn't it?" She turned back to her monitors. "Now, I'd love to actually go examine your friend – if that's okay with you."

"It's not like I'm leavin' him in a damn daycare!" Bozer exploded. "If you didn't read his file, you don't know-"

"Which juicebox he prefers?" she offered mildly. "Wilt, if it's not already apparent to you, let me spell this out. We deal with damaged assets. Oftentimes the people most important to our government are dangerous –"

Bozer huffed. "That's what I'm tryin' to tell you, he's –"

"Perfectly safe," she cut him off, "and so are all the other patients, and all the other staff. If Angus MacGyver can check himself out of this facility, he doesn't belong in it."

His retort was on his lips before he stopped, and he replayed the words she'd just said. If he can check himself out, he doesn't belong. So damage meant more than that. If he could walk and talk and argue his way out, she'd let him out.

Unless the United States government disagreed, apparently –

"And I will tell you the same thing I told –" she paused, her eyes sightlessly searching the ceiling as she thought, "Matilda? Matilda Webber. I don't play politics, and if you try to involve me in them, you will regret it." She glanced at her monitors again, then locked her computer and stood. "Been a pleasure, Mr. Power of Attorney. Thanks for stopping by."

He stood as well, uncertain of how to argue with her but no more comfortable with leaving Mac, and she extended her fist. "Hey. He gets a clean start here. No baggage, no expectations. That's not so bad, right?"

The question stayed forefront in his mind, even after he'd walked numbly back into reception to find a taxi already waiting for him – pre-paid. It stayed with him as he scanned his boarding pass and walked through the same security checkpoint as an air marshal – something he'd been looking forward to doing since he'd found out he was going to be a spy.

Clean start. No baggage, no expectations.

She wasn't going to measure Mac against anyone, not even himself. She didn't know he was supposed to be a genius – so she wouldn't expect one. And as a result, he wouldn't feel like a failure if he wasn't.

 _But he is, that's gonna drive him nuts –_

And since when did Mac not like to show off? To impress?

There was no way Mac wasn't gonna bounce back. His scans looked good, even Meijer was hopeful about his outcome. Everything Mac was good at, mathematics, spatial geometry, stoichiometry, none of that happened in the brain stem. The brain stem was for controlling the RC car that was the human body. Higher functions happened elsewhere, the non-damaged sections –

But Meijer had been clear on what could be damaged. Sleep regulation. Motor control. Sense of touch. Sense of physical self.

Even if the math was all still there, he might not be physically coordinated enough to still be effective in the field. Which didn't matter, because the Phoenix would give him a lab job and he'd still be able to do his thing, save lives –

But would he be happy?

No one had that answer. Only Mac himself could make that choice. And Bozer hoped to God that he was given that opportunity.

He was still a good hour early for his flight, and Wilt found himself aimlessly pacing the window in front of his gate. He had _plenty_ to read, Riley had given him the hookup, but he couldn't even think about that right now.

What had he just done?

Finally he couldn't take it anymore, and his thumb mashed down on a smiling face before he brought the phone to his ear.

It rang twice. "Hey, Boze – I kinda don't have much time. Everything okay?"

He shook his head vehemently even though he knew she couldn't see it. "No, no it's not okay. Riley, I think I just checked Mac into supermax."

There was a pause on the line. "Uh . . . what?"

"It's worse than the time we broke into Dutch HQ!" he hissed into the phone. "I'm pretty sure the guards have freakin' microchips in the backs of their hands! It's not a fancy resort, it's a place they lock up crazy operatives! It's like a-a looney bin of Jacks!"

"Whoa." He couldn't tell if she was alarmed, or trying not to laugh. "Okay, start from the beginning."

"You need to get eyes in there. I'm serious." He knew he was probably asking the impossible, but he couldn't bear the thought of them locking Mac away because he couldn't tell Dr. Parsons that he was still in there. "And look up his doc, the name's Simone Parsons. Make sure she's on the up and up. She's creepy, like in a Samantha way but way more specific-"

"Bozer-"

"Riley, they called him a _damaged asset_. And they took away my power of attorney. I can't even go _see_ him unless his doc okays it."

"They _what_?!" She definitely wasn't laughing now, and her voice hushed, like she'd ducked around a corner. "Bozer, they can't do that-"

"Well you march over here and _you_ tell'em that!" he said hotly. "They sent me on my way, said they'd give us an update in a month!"

On the phone, Riley gave a frustrated huff. "Okay, look dude, as soon as I get out of this, I'll – I'll see what I can find. Do you think he'll be okay at least, like, overnight?"

Boze nodded, then realized she couldn't see that. "Yeah, yeah, I think he'll be okay for a day or two. But Riley, you gotta be careful, okay? This is super hinky, I get the feelin' –"

"Bozer, shut up," Riley commanded firmly. "I gotta go. We'll talk later. You get my email?"

He forced his racing thoughts back to the matter at hand. "-yeah. Yeah, I got it."

"Awesome. Alright, dude, later-"

"Good luck," he rushed out, and there was a pause.

"Yeah. Thanks."

The phone call disconnected.

-M-

"Are you ready, Ms. Davis?"

Riley turned around with a smile on her face, that she carefully wiped off when she realized it was her least favorite member of the inquiry committee. "Yes ma'am."

"Excellent," the exceedingly thin woman drawled, obviously actually meaning 'then why are you keeping us waiting,' and Riley nearly pocketed her phone before she remembered. The severe woman raised an eyebrow, and Riley gave an embarrassed little laugh that she was pretty sure fooled no one, and set it down on the table outside the conference room, in the bin that had been set out just for her.

Everyone else got to keep their phones.

She must be the woman Jack called 'the Ferret'. There was just something . . . weasel-like about her. Her hooked nose, her excessively bony fingers. According to him, she'd been part of DXS longer than he had, though as soon as Riley had inquired as to when Jack had first met the woman, he was suddenly less forthcoming.

Honestly, if Jack had been breaking the rules and getting dragged into the principle's office that long, and still had a job, she had nothing to worry about.

Right?

She trailed after the Ferret into the dreaded conference room, taking her seat in front of the firing squad, and gave the five people a wide, completely so-done-with-this smile. Not a one of them, not even Matty, returned it.

"Resume debrief. August 16th, 2018, 1500 hours. Agent Davis, Riley. Concerning Operation D364-02."

She supposed she should be glad they were referring to it as an operation. She'd only had time to skim the document she sent to Bozer, and it only included the notes they'd seen fit to actually type out concerning Matty's on-going debriefing. There was no telling if Matty had said something else that simply hadn't been entered into record, and Riley didn't envy Bozer trying to navigate that snake pit one bit.

Navigating her own was bad enough.

"Regarding your time on the _Panorama_ ," the unofficial chairman, a man Riley didn't recognize from the last time, began. "We have a few follow-up questions."

 _Because two straight days of this shit wasn't enough_. "Sure," she offered with a shrug.

"During the last session, you stated that you suspected you were drugged and interrogated by Kadir Hakan and Batuhan Aydin, at length, two nights after Agent MacGyver was brought into your cell," the Ferret observed blandly. "You also stated you have no memory of this interrogation, but you went on to assert that online activity executed later by UN analyst Hatice Iris corroborated your suspicion."

Riley gave the woman a somewhat blank look. ". . . yeah, that's right."

"But you don't remember the actual interrogation."

"No," she admitted.

The Ferret deliberately folded her hands on the table. "Then why do you believe Iris's actions were a result of intelligence you gave them, as opposed to intelligence Agent MacGyver may have given them?"

Riley cocked her head. ". . . because Ma- Agent MacGyver is many things, but he's not a hacker. The way that Iris tried to hide her network traffic, the way that she set up honeypots in the cruise line network, that's not something MacGyver knows how to do."

"Perhaps not technically, but conceptually?"

She remembered the first time he'd told her what he did. _You know how you hack computers? Well, I hack . . . everything else._ Of course he knew what a honeypot was. Just like she knew that he could make rocket fuel out of flour and mildew. They'd worked too closely, for too long, for him not to have picked up just about everything he'd seen her do – but he couldn't actually type the code any more than she could actually disarm a bomb.

Riley shook her head. "I mean, yeah, but not at the same level as that hacker. She knew exactly what tactics and techniques we would use to try to pin her down. Agent MacGyver knows enough to follow along in a briefing, but the details she had to have to keep one step ahead of us that long . . . that's not something he would know."

"And you're certain of that."

"Absolutely." She searched the panels' faces, lingering on the Ferret. "That's my area of expertise, not his."

It might have been stretching Jack's rule of 'don't volunteer shit they don't ask for' but she sure as hell wasn't going to let them blame Mac for that.

"You said that on the fifth day of your confinement, an unidentified woman gave Agent MacGyver a uniform similar to the colonel's men, and shortly thereafter he left with two of them. You estimated it was half an hour before the same men entered the cell and subdued you. Do you know how much time passed between your leaving the cell, and regaining consciousness there?"

She did her best not to glare. "MacGyver didn't _go_ with them – they restrained him and _took_ him. As for how long I was gone, I didn't exactly check my watch." In the leftmost seat, Matty gave her a small frown, and Riley huffed a little sigh. "No, I don't. MacGyver estimated that it was three or four hours."

"And . . ." Here the Ferret scanned the papers in front of her. "Yet you stated that he told you he was unconscious during part of that time?"

Riley stared at the woman, not quite sure where this was headed. "Uh, yeah. He said that after he turned down the colonel's recruitment pitch, he saw them dragging me up the stairs into the banquet hall. He, uh, he tried to stop them, and they knocked him out."

"Yes," the man in the suit interjected. "You mentioned he had a head injury." He consulted a file folder, and the rest of the panel watched him. "A small gash on his left temple was noted by the trauma team."

"So it could have been a much longer or shorter period of time than a few hours," the Ferret observed, focusing back on Riley.

Riley met the woman's cold gaze with a glare of her own. "Well, it was enough time for me to bruise and stiffen up, so I agree with his estimate."

The Ferret drew herself up. "Agent Davis, did he tell you why he was given the uniform?"

Snark aside, she actually had to think about that one. "I don't think he knew."

"So he told you that he met with and spoke to Colonel Aydin, that he declined to work for the colonel, and that after a brief scuffle with Aydin's men, he was then simply taken back to the cell?" When she got a reluctant nod, she continued. "What then was the purpose of giving him the uniform?"

Riley leaned forward, folding her arms on the table. "Well, since they went to so much trouble creating a look-alike and planting evidence, maybe they intended to take him somewhere, and let him get found by local police as a distraction."

The Ferret waved a hand. "If that were true, Ms. Davis, why didn't they?"

Riley gave her a blank look. ". . . because they knocked him out instead . . ."

"You said he was conscious and mobile when you awoke back in the cell," the Ferret said impatiently. "And that he was awake for long enough prior to your return to estimate that you had been gone 'three or four hours,' which he could not have done if he himself was unconscious all that long. Clearly the injury wasn't debilitating, as Agent MacGyver was capable of assisting with your escape. Did you see any sign that he was disoriented, or having difficulty with his balance?"

Riley stared at the panel, unaware that she'd leaned back and crossed her arms until her right shoulder twinged. "No," she said shortly. "No, his balance was fine."

 _Don't volunteer shit they don't ask for,_ her mental Jack cautioned again, and Riley carefully didn't glance at Matty.

"They couldn't hurt him too badly, because if they had, when his body turned up, it would contradict their little narrative that he was cooperating with them," she added coldly. "They didn't have to hurt him as long as they could hurt me."

"They did hurt him," the Ferret observed, lacing her fingers on the conference table. "You stated that you believe Agent MacGyver was responsible for cutting power to the ship, but we don't know that. Evidence is still being gathered. For all we know he was stabbed in retaliation for releasing you against the colonel's wishes." Then she cocked an eyebrow.

"What _is_ quite clear, Agent Davis, is that they intended to kill you from the moment they took you. What they intended for Agent MacGyver is much less clear. It appears that you were being used to blackmail Agent MacGyver into cooperating, but the only record to support that is a single video call that you don't remember. You refer to hard evidence as a 'narrative' that Colonel Aydin was attempting to discredit MacGyver, yet there is no evidence that he was not, in fact, willingly working with the colonel." Riley opened her mouth, but the woman spoke right over her attempt to interrupt. "We are trying to establish a timeline of Agent MacGyver's movements, made all the more difficult by significant gaps -"

"No, you're trying to cover your ass like you did last year," Riley growled, and in her peripheral vision, she saw Matty shift in her chair.

"Let's not get off track here." It sounded more like a command than a suggestion. "What Agent MacGyver may or may not have done during the hours in question is supposition. Agent Davis can only share what she knows, and she was drugged and unconscious during that time. Are there any further questions regarding Riley's time on the _Panorama_?"

The Ferret's nostrils flared, but she kept her thin little lips in a tight line. It was the suit that spoke next.

"Agent Davis, earlier you characterized your relationship with Angus MacGyver as that of a team lead and subordinate, and a friend." The man looked up from the document in his hand. "Why do you think they took you as leverage over him?"

Riley blinked at him, taken aback. "Well, because . . . I was isolated from the team at a conference, so they'd get a head start before anyone realized I was missing. I caused them a lot of trouble last year, I think they also wanted me off the table. It seems like they were after everyone who participated in taking the colonel down."

"Yes, your actions during the previous operation are noted." The suit's voice was dry. "But why you? Wilt Bozer lives with Agent MacGyver, and has a much longer history with him than you do. He was also part of the team that investigated MacGyver's abduction and the colonel's involvement. They clearly had access to personnel files, home addresses. They went to significant effort to take you from that conference, including circumventing multiple security systems, and took substantial risk by revealing their contact in the Turkish government. You stated they didn't ask you for any information that you can recall until they had to modify their escape plan, so . . . why you?"

All of that was true, and Riley carefully didn't change her expression at all. _Don't lie, and don't omit important shit._

"They didn't tell me." She didn't try to sound flippant – much – but it came out that way, and the suit frowned at her. She shrugged at the guy. "I guess maybe they thought I'd be easier to keep quiet. I'm the only woman on the team, and they made it pretty clear that I was just a tool they were using to control Mac."

And never clearer than during the three to four hour window the Ferret was so damned interested in.

The suit cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean they left me alone when they didn't need to use me to get to him." It was hard not to snap. "The male guards didn't want to interact with me unless I was wearing a hijab, even after I almost got away they still didn't treat me like I was a threat, they didn't even bother to tie me up. I don't remember actually seeing Hakan at all, and no one tried to recruit me. I was just – a means to an end, to them."

The Ferret sniffed. "And how frequently do you see Agent MacGyver outside of work?"

The question surprised her a little. "I dunno, maybe once a week for dinner?" At the suit's raised eyebrow, Riley elaborated. "Bozer likes to cook, he makes dinner for the whole team pretty regularly."

"Do you ever see MacGyver without the rest of the team, or Bozer there?"

They thought they were an item. That she'd been taken as leverage on Mac because they were hooking up. Riley gave the woman a beatific smile. "What exactly are you insinuating?"

A little flash of amusement seemed to flicker across the woman's face, as well. "I just want to clarify the relationship."

Honestly, so did Riley, but not in the way the woman was inferring. She just kept the sarcastic smile on her face, and raised her eyebrows at the rest of the panel, inviting other questions.

Two grueling hours later, she finally understood what they were after.

Options.

They weren't hunting for Mac's head. They just wanted to know exactly how much they could wipe off the slate if they threw him under the bus. They'd also asked if he'd had access to other parts of the ship, other unexplained absences from the cell. Why they'd been kept together, as opposed to separate. Everything Mac had told her about the courthouse. She'd like to think it was because they knew that Mac was a good agent, and that he'd done the best he could. That he may have taken actions that saved lives, that he simply hadn't told Riley about.

They were building both a defense and a case. They were either going to rally around him or abandon him. And their choice probably depended solely on how well Mac recovered. That's why they'd put him where they'd put him, and why Bozer was freaking out.

Damaged asset.

Riley shook her head to herself as she stalked down the hallway, dismissed from her third day of debriefing. Here she was, so pissed about being treated like a tool, and the guy she'd accused of doing it to her was in the exact same boat – literally and figuratively.

"Riley."

She wouldn't have stopped, but the voice belonged to her boss, and Matty took her dear sweet time catching up. "I know we went late tonight. I had Chinese delivered, if you want a bite to eat."

Nothing about the offer was weird; she and Matty had gotten dinner on more than one occasion before, and she usually really appreciated those times. Matty was a hell of a mentor.

When she hadn't just spent the last ten hours letting strangers shit all over her best agent, and done almost nothing to stop it. Riley wasn't sure, if they started talking, what might come out of her mouth.

"I'm kinda tired, Matty, and I promised Boze I'd go water his plants-"

"You have time for a quick dinner," Matty informed her, and then kept walking.

Stifling a sigh, Riley followed her.

She was led to the War Room, as opposed to Matty's office, but she didn't really think anything of it because the couches were comfy and if it really was unwinding time, they could catch an episode of something on the big screen. And there was a pile of Chinese food, including some of her favorites. She surveyed the laden coffee table, then turned and gave Matty a half-teasing suspicious look.

"So is this . . . a bribe?" she said, gesturing at the feast.

Matty reached over and tapped the glass, frosting it, and then turned with a curious little smile. "And . . . why would I need to bribe you?" When Riley tried to work it out, the smile grew. "I'm your boss, Riley. If I need you to do something, I tell you."

Riley cocked an eyebrow, her stomach clenching just a little, even though her boss's tone was light. "Yeah . . . okay."

"Yeah, okay," Matty echoed, still amused, and then helped herself to the Singapore street noodles.

Riley picked up some beef and broccoli, and they got a couple bites in before Matty cleared her throat. "There's something I'd like to ask you."

Riley suppressed a groan, and propped a boot against the edge of the coffee table. "That you haven't asked me in three days?"

This time her boss's smile was a little self-deprecating. "I know you're tired of being interrogated. So let me tell you what I know first."

Matty set down her noodles, and picked up the remote. Up on the main screen, a document popped to life. It was a medical record, dated about two weeks ago, belonging to one Annamarie Fischer.

The alias that Nurse Sophie had created for her. Where she'd recorded the results of the rape kit.

The food in her mouth turned to ash, and Riley stared at the screen for a long moment, then carefully set down the takeout box, letting her boot slide off the table. She wanted to get up, walk out, but there was no denying it now. Matty didn't need her to confirm it. She clearly already knew.

"I know that you had these test run, and not under your approved alias," Matty said gently, and then she set down the remote. "You didn't mention it to the panel."

"Mention what," Riley found herself saying tonelessly. "If you – you have this, all you have to do is read it." Where it very clearly said, over and over again –

Inconclusive. Negative.

Riley averted her eyes from the document, that had done nothing but leave her with more questions. "It's a non-issue, and it's none of their business, Matty. None of _your_ business."

"Excuse me," Matty snapped, with more than a little heat in her tone, "but the health of my agents is _absolutely_ my business."

"And you had that in Sarah Ditmer's record!" Riley bit back, gesturing angrily at the monitor. "The physical, my sprained shoulder, everything! You didn't have to-" Then she broke off. Of course Matty had gone looking. Matty knew everything.

Webber took a deep breath. "Riley, I understand if this feels like an invasion of your privacy, but I need to ask you something."

" _No_ ," she growled immediately, standing and pacing to the back wall just to escape the bright white screen. The glass was still frosted, all she could see was her own reflection in it. "No, it didn't happen. They just – they knocked me around and bruised me up to scare Mac."

"Oh, did they tell you that?" Matty scoffed. "That was nice of them."

"It was to - to hide the interrogation, and to prevent us from escaping." The words tasted bitter. "They knew Mac wouldn't leave me behind."

And she knew it too. They were going to have a long talk about that when Mac got back.

"Again – did they tell you that?"

Riley transferred her glare to the reflection of Matty. "They didn't have to." And hell, maybe they had, and she just didn't remember it. "Anyway, now you know."

Her diminutive boss sighed. When she spoke again, the anger was gone. "Actually, that's not what I brought you in here to ask you."

Awesome. Riley fidgeted, still staring at the back wall. Where she could read the reflection of the document backwards. It still said the same thing.

"Riley, look at me."

And now she was going to get the same lecture she'd already heard – three times now. "I know what you're going to say –"

"Good, then just turn around and look at me already."

Against her better judgement – and feeling a little like the time her mom caught her selling computer hardware to a guy in Canada illegally – Riley turned forty-five degrees. Matty's expression was soft, but not as sympathetic as she'd feared.

"Riley, are you alright?"

Somehow, that was not the question she was expecting, even though it probably ought to have been. Riley swallowed down the lump in her throat. ". . . yeah, Matty, I'm fine."

"Because it's okay if you're not. Far more experienced agents than you have stood right where you're standing and have chosen to walk away." Matty pressed her lips together, then recovered the remote. She clicked the document off the monitor. "It's the ugly side of this job, what people are capable of doing to one another. I'll be honest with you, Riley. I don't want to see you walk away. But if you can't handle this, if you'd like some time out of the field, you've got it."

If she couldn't handle it. A humorless smile twisted her lips. "Let me ask _you_ something, Matty. What does handling it look like? What is it that I have to do to get all of you to understand that I'm not a helpless princess?"

Now it was Matty's turn to look surprised. "I didn't say you were a helpless princess."

"No, but you don't seem to think that I'm handling this," Riley shot back. "What was I supposed to do? I got myself tested and checked out. I finished the damn _op_ , Matty. I was there for Mac, I was there for Bozer, I have shown up for work every damn day since and I have done my job. I gave you Aydin's contact in Turkish intelligence, not that anyone will tell me whether or not he's even been _arrested_ until I get out debriefing hell. What do you _want_ from me?"

Matty blinked at her. "I want you to tell me the truth, Riley. I want to know that you know what resources are available to you, and that you're not alone."

"Yeah. I know where HR is," Riley snapped, and then immediately felt like an asshole.

Matty's expression hardened. "Sit down," she ordered, then pointed at the seat Riley had so recently vacated.

She didn't want to, but knowing she'd pushed what leeway she'd had a little too far, Riley eventually capitulated, and dropped herself reluctantly on the couch. She had to cross her arms to hide the fact that her hands were shaking.

Her boss inhaled deeply through her nose. "This doesn't leave this room."

Riley wasn't sure if that was a promise that Matty wasn't going to reveal the test – and the implication – to the panel, or if she was about to keep speaking, and Webber kept her in suspense a very long time.

"Since my tenure started here at Phoenix, there have been three agents who have gone through what you've gone through." Riley just stared at her, a little taken aback by the stats. "Two of them are male," Matty continued carefully. "You have worked alongside at least one of them."

She didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything at all. Men? She hadn't exactly read about any agents being kidnapped and held against their will by a harem, so –

It's just a tactic, she told herself firmly. To unsettle a prisoner. And it fucking works. Of course someone like Hakan could have done that to a dude. Maybe even to Mac.

"So if you think it's hard for you to sit in here and have me ask you if you're all right, or if you need help, imagine what that conversation was like for them," Matty continued. "Do you think that makes them helpless princesses?"

"No, of course not," Riley muttered, after it was clear Matty wasn't asking rhetorically. The 'but' was almost on her lips before her mental Saito slapped the back of her head. "I'm . . . I'm sure that it was just to scare me, control me."

"Well of course it was," Matty retorted. "Why else do you think people get raped?"

It was still hard to hear the word, because what happened to her _was not_ –

"Riley, if I told you that someone kidnapped and drugged me, and I woke up sore with bruises I couldn't explain, missing my underwear, would you let a blood test determine whether or not you thought it was traumatic for me? It would be traumatic for _anyone_. So stop with the brave martyr act. If you think denying something happened is handling it, then I will pull you from the field right now, permanently."

That thought sent her stomach hurtling straight to her toes. "No, Matty, I'm not denying anything –"

"You literally just denied denying," her boss observed acerbically.

Riley closed her eyes and almost growled with frustration. What was she trying to say? "I . . . I really think I'll be okay. Don't pull me. Please." The idea of taking a couple weeks off was terrifying. What the hell would she do with herself? Mainline Netflix? Go to another stupid convention? When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see that Matty had approached her, silently, and was standing right in front of her.

"Then don't use work as a crutch," Matty told her quietly. "You did that after the Organization tried to take us down, and because of it, the Organization was able to compromise another op _through_ you. You're going to have to reconcile that you're never going to know what really happened that day, and that you're not going to let it control you." Matty picked up one of her hands, and squeezed it gently. "Can you do that?"

Riley started nodding almost before Matty was finished, and at her boss's suddenly stern look, she cleared her throat. "Yeah. I can do that."

Matty watched her eyes for a long moment. "Good," she approved. "And, Riley?" A small, encouraging smile touched her lips. "This is what handling it looks like. If you have a bad day, a close call, a scare – or you're just straight up worn out . . . my door is _always_ open. Especially for royalty."

Riley nodded again, and her boss gave her another squeeze, then turned and retrieved the discarded beef and broccoli, pressing it back into her hands. "As for debriefing hell . . . you're done for now." The small woman returned to her own seat, once again picking up the remote. "So let me bring you up to speed."

A brown-haired man appeared on the screen, smiling down at them, and Riley seriously considered putting the beef and broccoli back down. He looked just as harmless in his government-issued ID as he had on the computer screen, what seemed like years ago, in the hotel in Vegas. Tanned but not obviously Turkish, with short, straight hair and a friendly, open face. Even his name was unthreatening – Robert Donnovan.

"Jill and Liz were never able to get definitive proof that he was on site at the conference. We don't know exactly who grabbed you, but I think it's safe to say they were members of Aydin's _Bordo Berelilers_." 

So no proof, besides her word, that he was involved in her kidnapping. "I got a very good look at his face, Matty. It was definitely him." And there was no way he hadn't been on site in that hotel. The lack of lag time between her movements and his on the computer screen proved it. At the time she'd assumed he'd been motion captured as part of an elaborate hacker scavenger hunt, and not actually a live person probably in the room next door, but knowing what she did now, she was absolutely certain of it. If he'd been even as far as LA, there would have been more lag when he was copying her movements.

Her boss inclined her head. "The State Department agreed. Director Bosch was able to find footage of our good friend Robert on Capitol Hill the week of the conference. Turns out he does forensic IT analysis for Turkish intelligence."

Which made him more than capable enough to put together the little scavenger hunt that had fooled her. "So we have him in country, but not in Vegas. Is that going to be enough?"

"Bosch also passed along several text messages between Donnavan and someone named Liris. In them they discuss an upcoming visit from two 'friends' that will meet him on site, though they don't explicitly state who or where." The messages flashed up on the screen, and Riley scanned them a second before her eyebrows shot up.

"Wait – Liris?" That name rang a bell. "There was a hacker a few years ago who went by that tag, did some pretty impressive stuff with breaking military encryption before he fell off the face of the earth." Great. Just what they needed, another hacker to track down. "How did the State Department even get these?"

"I didn't ask," Matty replied blandly. "And it turns out Liris wasn't a he." A passport popped up on the screen, showing Hatice Iris's unsmiling face, and Matty pointed out her looping signature. Hatice L. Iris.

". . . Liris," Riley murmured. "She literally went by her real name."

"Jill is working on connecting Donnovan to any of the hacking that went on last year, including the Raytheon breach. He travels to the United States fairly regularly as part of his job with Turkish intelligence."

Tying him to the Raytheon breach was going to be pretty difficult; they'd covered their tracks well. Riley frowned at the two faces on the screen.

"So he just happened to be here on legitimate business." He wasn't super powerfully built, and though tanned, he wasn't obviously ethnically Turkish. He looked like an average Caucasian guy. Unlike the mug shots of the dead Maroon Berets that had attacked Matty. Assuming it was the same group that grabbed her first, then attempted the hit, she could see why they'd risked showing her his face. Any of the military guys would have stood out like a sore thumb, and she might have realized before it was too late that it was a trap.

"If by legitimate you mean to pass along misinformation to State and confirm my assassination, then yes," Matty told her dryly. "The State Department has already given what we have so far to Turkish intelligence. My guess is, for now they'll watch him to see if he contacts any remaining supporters of Aydin. State has made it very clear to them that he is no longer welcome on American soil."

Cold comfort, though it did make Riley smirk a little. "So Director Bosch was actually helpful for once?"

Matty returned the smirk. "It seems Bozer gave her the impression she was being shut out of things, so she's been going out of her way to be more . . . forthcoming."

"Wow. Go Bozer." Riley popped another piece of broccoli into her mouth. "So between these two . . . is this enough?"

Matty gave her a blank look, and Riley chewed quickly and swallowed. "I mean – for you to explain the op?" She was very well aware that the glass was frosted, which meant other security was in place to prevent anyone surveilling the room, but Oversight was still Oversight, and Riley wasn't about to just blurt it out.

Did getting these two mean that Matty was going to be okay, when they finished her debrief. That she was still going to be the director.

Matty's eyebrow arched. "You're asking me if I'm getting fired."

So much for not blurting it out.

"Riley . . ." She paused, then set down her noodles. "These men attempted to assassinate the director of a top level clandestine intelligence organization. That act _alone_ justified the op. We didn't know what other information they had. And it was our best shot at unmasking the hacker that gave UN credentials Aydin for the purposes of infiltrating Camp Bondsteel – where the United States keeps more than just weapons. I personally assured the NATO Strategic Commander that Phoenix would find that leak and plug it, and we have. You don't need to worry about me."

When she phrased it like that, it sounded . . . pretty solid. "And . . . you're feeling okay?" She used her chopsticks to gesture at her boss's back.

Matty nodded – and she could, the neck brace had been gone for days. "Yes, Riley. I'm healing up just fine. It's not all sunshine and roses, the Turkish government is still unhappy with us, but we exposed a mole in their ranks, and frankly having the colonel taken out by the Germans and Dutch was a win for Erdogan. It wasn't our cleanest op, not by a mile, but we're going to be okay."

Riley nodded, and returned her boss's smile, but it fell a little when looked back up at the screen. Aydin was gone, Iris was gone, Hakan was gone . . . once Donnovan was put in a dark hole, it would really be over.

Matty followed her gaze. "Agent Staib's observation in your debrief earlier was spot on. The second you saw his face, your fate was sealed."

It was the only time he'd directly exposed himself. If she hadn't picked his face out of the dossiers Jill had passed along to her, it could have been years – if ever – that he was caught.

Riley shrugged it off. "She's actually an agent?" Now she finally had a name to put to that woman, instead of 'Ferret.'

Matty didn't look amused. "I need you to fully appreciate that, Riley. Earlier today you said you were simply a means to an end. That you were there so Hakan could exert control over Mac. Is that truly what you think?"

She looked between the screen and Matty. "Well – yeah. I told you, they didn't –"

"Try to recruit you, yes I understand that," the small woman interrupted. "They didn't try to recruit you because they didn't want you to work for them. They wanted to punish you."

Riley blinked at her. If they'd really had it out for her, they never would have been so hands off. "No, Matty –"

"Look at the facts." Her boss gestured at the screen. "Your kidnapping wasn't a quick win, and there was nothing convenient about it. It was an operation that was planned and executed by Maroon Berets with the same care and precision as the attack on my home. Taking Bozer would have been the much smarter play, but they didn't. They came for you specifically, and they came for you _first._ "

Matty paused a moment, letting that sink in. "Think about it, Riley. You were the very first piece taken off the board. Even before I was. That had nothing to do with Mac – that was about you, what you'd done, your skills. Using you to blackmail Mac was part of their plan, but the main goal was to neutralize the biggest threat."

Riley stared at her, not sure what to say. Sure, if she'd been around, she might have been able to track the phone calls between Mac and Bozer, if that was who they'd grabbed instead, she might have been able to clear the Phoenix systems faster, but it wasn't like she would have figured out that Mac was on the _Panorama_ any faster than Mila and Jill had. She alone could never have put a stop to it.

"That cell on the ship? That wasn't ever meant for Mac. That was built just for you. And even if they'd killed Mac at the courthouse, even if he'd never made it on that ship, you would have found your moment. You'd already figured out the weak point – the hinges. You found the drugs. You even got Blondie out of his restraints with the soggy wood trick." There was a note of pride in Matty's voice. "That was all you, and if you can't see that, I think you're significantly underestimating yourself."

Riley glanced away, a little embarrassed. The way Matty said it made it sound more grandiose than it was. "Trust me, I know my strengths. But if it was about punishing me, they would have done more than just –" She trailed off. "If that was true, why not just kill me?"

She heard Matty sigh. "Oh, right, you're being treated like a helpless princess. Have you considered that maybe it's not everyone else who doesn't believe in you?" Riley looked back over to her, and Matty shrugged.

"I get it. You used to be a lone wolf. You're used to playing only to your strengths, only showing people exactly what you want them to see, and not worrying about what they think. Now you're part of something much bigger. You're an agent, and you're learning on the job, making mistakes where other people can see. You think they can tell when you're scared, when you have doubts. Well, the truth is, they think you're so damn formidable that they need to take you out before they even _think_ about coming for me. And I'm not talking about _just_ Artemis37. I'm talking about Riley Davis."

Riley stared at her, until it became clear that she was expected to respond. " . . . I . . .don't feel all that formidable," she admitted softly. "Behind a keyboard, hell yeah I can kick just about anyone's ass, but . . . Matty, in that cell . . . I felt like I couldn't do anything. I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't know how to get out."

"I know," Matty told her gently. "And I would _love_ to tell you it's the very last time you're going to feel that way . . . but I can't. All I can do is make sure you know that you are powerful, and they're the ones who should be afraid."

Riley blinked a few times, then nodded. "I . . . thanks."

Matty pressed her lips together, then inclined her head. "You're welcome." Then she cleared her throat. "Now before all that goes to your head, I need you to not do what Bozer asked you to do earlier."

She did her best to follow along. And of course Matty knew about that too. "Not . . . get eyes in the super creepy super secure hospital that doesn't exist?"

"That's the one," Matty confirmed, rescuing her dinner. "Any type of network intrusion – even one like the nearly undetectable Artemis37's regarding _my_ debriefing – would be frowned upon, and when I say frowned upon, what I mean is that anyone caught would be charged with treason and go to prison forever." Her dark eyes bored into Riley's. "Is that clear?"

Yep. Don't get caught. "Got it." Then she paused. "So . . . did you know where he was going . . .?"

Her boss shook her head. "No, that came from higher up. What I do know is that Mac's physician, Dr. Parsons, comes highly recommended. I spoke to her earlier, she seems like a bit of a renegade. I'm going to reserve judgement until we see the results."

"And will we? See the results, I mean? Boze said even he's not allowed to visit Mac."

Matty frowned. "Eventually. If we couldn't contain Mac, it's not like they can. When he decides he needs to leave, he will. It's my understanding Phoenix has made a request for limited access. If that should be granted, it'll have to do, at least temporarily."

She had a good point. Once Mac was back on his feet, secure hospital or no, he'd find a way out. But 'limited access' didn't sound like something Bozer – or Jack – were going to be very happy about. "And if it's rejected?"

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Matty remarked, and then pointed with her chopsticks at the table. "Spring roll?"

-M-

There was a whole lot of information jammed into this chapter, but I really felt like taking us forward a week was the right move. I can tell you that we get to actually spend some time with Mac next chapter, as well as catch up on what Jack's been up to. I meant to do that here, but this chapter was getting just too long.

In summation – Mac has been transferred to an ultra secure government rehabilitation center, and visitors are not allowed. Riley has finished her debriefings, and had a long-overdue talk with her boss about what really happened out there. It looks like Matty's going to get to keep her job, the op is all wrapped up, the bad guys are finally put to bed, and now all we have to do is get Mac back on his feet!

. . . because that's exactly how the first one went, right?

Right?


	25. Chapter 25

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

Angus MacGyver _hated_ the ventilator.

Every time they got him anywhere near semi-consciousness, he fought it. Even if they set it to assistive mode, allowing the patient to choose to initiate a breath before the machine engaged. It didn't matter. The moment he became aware enough to control his lungs on any kind of scale, he resisted it tooth and nail.

They'd tried variable speeds, thinking the discomfort in his lung might give him a sensation of difficulty. They'd tried reducing the positive pressure, allowing the patient to use his own muscles as much as she was comfortable doing so. It didn't make any difference.

And that was a problem.

She scowled at his most recent images. "You are not well enough to wean off mechanical ventilation," she explained to the screen patiently. The swelling had gone down significantly; on day one they'd replaced what she called the 'shipping tube' with a soft, skin-like alternative that wouldn't permanently damage his windpipe and vocal chords. It was still down his throat instead of through it, they couldn't perform a tracheostomy since it would leave a permanent scar, and the US government frowned on cosmetically damaging its property.

Or in this case, cosmetically damaging it any more than it already was.

Still, even with some of the discomfort addressed, she had no doubt he could feel the endotracheal tube in there. Something alien.

"So what am I supposed to do with you," she wondered aloud. They needed him out of this heavy sedation to evaluate his brain, but he was too distressed by the tube, too combative. There was no way to bring him around fast enough without his panicked gasping damaging barely healed muscles and tissues.

And that problem was not going to go away. Not until he was alert enough to knock it off.

Time to figure out if the response was due to the tube, the lung, or fear. "Wanda, let's grease him up." They could temporarily numb his mouth and throat – and technically the lung, but it was a bad idea, that would definitely make it feel like it wasn't working. If it was the combination of tube and pain, she was screwed, but if they could just keep him calm until the worst of the sedatives got out of his system, at least she could see if he was capable of understanding what was happening to him.

The woman behind her gave a short laugh. "Rippin' off the bandaid, eh?"

"Well, we need to start some physical therapy ASAP, or his chest is going to become one big glob of scar tissue." Frankly some of that was probably unavoidable at this point. "If he wants to do that the hard way, I'll let him."

Her nurse, Wanda, clucked her tongue. "One Doctor Moan Special, comin' up."

Simone made a face, and moved onto the next image, studying his cervical vertebrae. "You know I hate that nickname. I sound like a porn star."

The African-American woman behind her snorted out a laugh. "I got news for yah, Mone. After we go in there and shut the door, that's kinda what it sounds like anyway."

The rest of his scans looked pretty decent. There was a little swelling between Th 4 and 5, but nothing she wouldn't expect after a knife was lodged there a couple weeks ago. "Yeah, well, healing hurts."

In the case of one Angus MacGyver, it didn't need to hurt nearly this much. "Give him something for his chest, too. Let's get rid of as much of the discomfort as we can, see if this panic response is psychosomatic."

"Ooo, goin' easy on this one?"

"He's young," Simone replied, backing out of the application and turning to find her nurse had already gathered most of what they needed on the patient cart. "I'll let someone else pop his cherry."

Wanda simply arched one platinum bleached-blonde eyebrow. "Mmm-hmm. You like the pretty ones, don't you."

To be honest, she didn't think this was MacGyver's first or even second visit to an intensive care unit. Two bullet wounds, surgical scars, what looked like a little shrapnel damage, a couple pretty well-healed burns, and plastic surgery to hide the scars ringing both his wrists. He'd look right at home in Hollywood, but Angus MacGyver was no stranger to someone bringing the hurt.

Which was another reason she was leaning towards a psychosomatic response. He'd gone down hard, in enemy hands. She'd be scared shitless too.

"You know I like brunettes," she replied distractedly, picking up a tablet and scrolling through his file. She'd already pared the electronic one down to just the important details, and she refreshed herself on a couple as she used a rabbit-slippered foot to hold the double door open for Wanda.

The woman barely even glanced at them as she pushed the cart through. "How many times you sent those poor things through the autoclave by now?"

Countless. "This pair's holding up pretty good, actually." Simone kicked up a foot and looked over her shoulder to see if the brand was written on the bottom, but it wasn't. They had to be cotton, to stand up to the temperatures inside a sterilizing autoclave, and some of the bright pink in their floppy ears had faded, but they were still way the hell more comfortable than her heels. "TJ found them, I think he said Walgreens?"

"After Easter special, I bet." Wanda's tone was wry. "Damn, that man finds all the best deals."

"I think he said he used to be a buyer for Crate and Barrel?" Simone led the way, padding towards Observation Five. "He also found that hideous tortured metal art piece hanging in the chapel."

She heard more than saw Wanda's lip curl. "Oh."

Simone Parsons led the way into the room, badging in, and Wanda flashed her badge as well, recording the entrance. She left the nurse to it, approaching the patient's bedside. He was still sedated, corneal reflex good, pupils symmetric and sluggish. Temp was just over a hundred, he couldn't seem to shake that lowgrade fever. He had decent muscle tone for a patient presenting with neurogenic shock, and she got his Adam's apple to twitch.

On his other side, Wanda went ahead and administered the stimulant and pain meds, scanning in each, and Simone applied the lidocaine through the port on the endotracheal tube. After that, she adjusted his ventilator to assistive, on a feather trigger. The slightest attempt at inhalation would result in a full breath.

On a whim, she snagged the patient privacy curtains, currently hanging by the head of his bed, and pulled them around the overhead track to his elbows. Enough to completely block his peripheral vision, so that the only thing in motion in his field of vision would be Wanda. Then she padded over to the stool, logged into the computer, and fired up the cameras.

The application instantly centered on his face, mapping his eyes, eyebrows, cheekbones, nostrils, mouth, and jaw. It would capture the slightest movements of his eyes, which was the entire point of this exercise.

"Come on, Sleeping Beauty," she murmured quietly. "Show me those baby blues."

Much like yesterday, his first sign of semi-consciousness was a slight tightening of the skin around his eyes. His next breath was a little unsteady, and each successive breath more so. The last couple of times they'd tried to be gentle, letting him come around gradually, but there was no getting him beyond the point of sucking on the vent so hard he stressed his pulmonary system beyond tolerance. He'd absolutely do that now, unless they could get him to a conscious enough state to calm the fuck down. Otherwise it was going to be paralytics and anti-anxiety meds, and that was not the way she wanted to measure this guy's cognitive state.

Hell, he was practically paralyzed now. The neurogenic shock meant he shouldn't be moving much below his shoulders.

His distress was now plain to hear, gasps that terminated before full breaths, rejection of the positive pressure. She watched his blood pressure climb, not alarmingly, but his heart rate had doubled. Simone studied his eyes carefully on the screen. No motion.

"Come on, handsome," Wanda crooned softly, on the other side of the curtain. "You're okay. Come towards me now."

A glance at the bed showed her Wanda was running a small, spiny rubber ball along the top of his left shoulder, where the nerves should be fully intact. Trying to distract him with a sensation other than his chest and his throat. Finally, she got a twitch of a closed eye, rolled to the left. His heart rate had surpassed 100 bpm.

Once he hit 140, they'd have to put him back under.

"Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?"

His skull canted slightly to the left, but he never stopped fighting the ventilator. The carbon dioxide in his blood gases had already dropped almost twenty percent. He was well on his way to hyperventilating.

And seeing as he was vented, and one of his lungs was worthless, that was a significant accomplishment. He really, _really_ didn't like that ventilator.

"Open your eyes, handsome. That's it. Look at me."

His native language was English. Mother died when he was five. A female voice should resonate with him, no matter how badly his memories might be scrambled. And true to that profile, his eyelids fluttered, exposing rolling blue eyes.

Not fixated on Wanda.

"There you are, handsome!" she chirped, half an octave higher, but still coaxingly. "Can you look at me? Look at me, now. You're okay. You're safe. Look at me."

He didn't, not until she increased the pressure of the hard rubber massage ball on his shoulder. She gave him a bright smile. None of it made the slightest difference to his breathing pattern.

Still trying to hyperventilate. Damn it.

"Slow it down there, handsome," Wanda admonished him, still gentle. "You're okay, you can breathe just fine. Keep looking at me, okay? Listen to my voice. You're safe now. You're okay."

He didn't focus on any one point for more than a second or two, and his eyes didn't roll more than forty-five degrees in their orbit. He weakly clenched them shut, then sluggishly got them open again. Still not fixated on Wanda.

Simone frowned, then stood and approached his bed from the foot, on his right. She waved the tablet over him, well within his line of sight.

He didn't look towards her. Didn't respond to the motion at all.

Simone gave him a good five seconds to register her presence. He was consumed with the ventilator, he even twisted his head towards his right in an escape gesture, and his eyes fell across her without focusing.

"Sir, can you hear me?" she asked him, voice authoritative.

More feeble head-shaking. Blood pressure was continuing to climb.

" _Specialist_!" she bellowed without warning, clapping sharply, and finally got a delayed flinch. He turned in the direction of the sound, and his eyes seemed to crawl up her coat towards her face. But as he relaxed his neck, his head rolled back towards the middle of the pillow, and his focus drifted from her to the ceiling. He blinked, and for the first time, it seemed like a conscious choice.

"You're in a hospital," she told him, still harshly. "I need you to look at me. Look at me!"

He closed his eyes again, for such a long time that she thought he might be losing consciousness, but then he sucked down a full breath from the ventilator – almost deliberately – and opened his eyes. They were still glazed and rolling, but he did a passable job of focusing on her face.

Simone leaned away. His eyes tracked her, but haltingly.

"You're in a hospital. You were injured." She kept the same exact tone. "Blink twice if you understand me."

He stared at her for a long moment, and pulled in another full breath. Then he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, tears leaked from both. He refocused on her for another second, then turned his head, back towards Wanda. She gave him a kind smile, nodding encouragingly.

"Hi, handsome," she cooed. "You're safe here, okay? We're going to fix you right up."

He tried to swallow – the lidocaine and general state of his esophagus made that nearly impossible – and his next breath stuttered. He shifted his right shoulder.

Crap. He was trying to move, and when he figured out he couldn't –

There was no doubt in her mind, every response after that was panic. There was no regaining his attention, no calming him, and in the end she put him back under.

Wanda sighed, gently wiping his face. "Poor baby."

Simone couldn't help a snort, pulling back the bandage on his chest. "Poor baby almost perforated his own lung. Change the dressing, give him a few hours to recuperate. I want him on a six hour sleep cycle. Partial daylight, change up his lighting, but no dusk, no twilight. I don't think Sleeping Beauty here is ready for the dark."

Since she already had him on plenty of pain meds, Simone put his right shoulder and arm through a few gentle stretches while Wanda prepped the bandaging. He was definitely oozing, and the wound drain showed fresh blood, but he hadn't popped any stitches, and the seal over the lung was intact.

It was going to be damn hard on his lung, but they needed to get his brain stimulated. "You are going to fight me the whole fucking way, aren't you," she growled at her patient. "And burn out a damn ventilator while you're at it."

Once again sedated, he gave her no indication of resistance, breathing easily. His heart rate had come back down to a reasonable resting average, and his blood pressure was slowly coming down as well.

"Wanna see if he prefers Alec?" Wanda inquired, peeling off a blue latex glove.

Simone considered it. He'd responded better to authority than comfort. But given that whoever had done this to him was almost certain to be male, she doubted he'd find a masculine presence soothing.

"No. Give him three strikes. Let's see if he remembers you."

She grabbed the tablet back off his bed, then went back to the mobile computer, checking a few things before shutting it down. "You got Mannuel in ten."

"Yes ma'am," Wanda confirmed, cleaning up the last of the bandaging. "Strawberry smoothie day."

"Strawberry smoothie day," Simone agreed, checking her watch. Every third day was strawberry smoothie day for Mannuel, and he got his treat at two pm on the nose. He'd been with them almost a month, now, and routines were having a significantly positive impact on his outbursts.

Her other three patients were in therapy – water, group paint, and physical – and weren't expecting to see her for another two hours. She liked the routines as much as they did, which was why finding a man in a tan suit in her office was such a disagreeable surprise.

Simone padded over to her desk, not even bothering to greet him. "If this about the patient in Five, you know I don't have anything."

"Good afternoon, Dr. Parsons," Seth replied, annunciating everything the same way he might to a kindergarten class, and then he raised the pitch of his voice a little, and continued. "Good afternoon, boss. What can I do for you?"

She ignored the prompting, logging into the computer instead and pulling up the footage of MacGyver. "See, you're fully capable of carrying on the entire conversation by yourself."

Dr. Seth Collins heaved an exaggerated sigh. "The Phoenix Foundation would like an update."

So would she. "No appreciable change in condition. When there is, we'll let them know." She fast forwarded to the part when he finally opened his eyes, and she watched the telemetry closely. Exactly where he focused, and for how long.

On the other side of her desk, Seth shifted. "They're requesting limited access, Simone."

"So?" She paused the footage when he finally actually looked at Wanda, zooming in and getting a measurement on his pupil contraction. "Give them the standard proof of life and tell them it's going to be a little while. Who are these people, anyway? I'm getting the impression they think we're going to boil him in acid."

Her boss was quiet for a moment. "I'm going to grant the request."

And they wondered why she didn't like the politics. "Fine. If they need what's in his head so badly, _they_ can get it out." She shot a glare at her superior over the stacks of papers. "He shouldn't have been sent here if all they wanted was an interrogation. I have other patients to treat."

Collins looked unruffled. "It's just a video feed, not physical patient access. I'll deny audio if that would make you feel better."

"This isn't about making me feel better," she retorted. "Who _are_ these people? Who is this guy, and why'd you let him jump the line?"

The other doctor looked innocent. "Maybe if you actually read your patients' records, you'd have the answers to these questions."

She gave him the side-eye, and went back to her assessment. "What record, they're all covered in black marker. You _know_ how I work, Seth, and you hired me anyway. We all make questionable decisions in our lives."

He grinned. "I did. Bunny slippers and all." He was quiet for a moment, and she'd almost actually started concentrating on the assessment again when he sighed, softly.

"He's a very valuable asset to the Phoenix Foundation, and that foundation is a very valuable organization to someone with a vested interest in the patient."

Vested interest.

Simone stared at Seth incredulously. "Are you fucking kidding me? We've got war heroes settling for second string because you let someone fast-track some - some senator's son?"

Collins raised an eyebrow. "You don't want to know anything about the politics, remember? And your five patient limit is self-inflicted. I'd be happy to add beds to your ward, just tell me how many."

She glowered at him. "You know damn well why I only take five patients at a time."

The other doctor spread his hands. "I know you feel like you can't give more than five patients one hundred percent, but you need to accept that even eighty percent of Simone Parsons is better than second string."

It sounded like a compliment – but it wasn't, and he hadn't meant it as one. "Right up until one of them needs one hundred percent and doesn't get it," she snapped in reply. "That's non-negotiable. It's not fair to them."

Collins shrugged. "Then I guess you better get him back on his feet ASAP, Dr. Parsons, so you can free up that bed for a patient who actually deserves you." He made a show of getting to his feet. "And having seen the non-redacted file, it may be beneficial to the patient if you knew he personally disposed of over five hundred explosive devices during only a few years of service as an EOD tech in the Armed Forces. He might be some senator's son, sure, but he earned his bed in this facility, and he earned your hundred percent."

Simone glared at him, then huffed. ". . . why is it, _every_ time I lose my temper, you manage to make me sound like a giant asshole?"

"Because you're a giant asshole, Parsons," Seth told her plainly. "And you care a hell of a lot. Besides, that's why you decided to work for me. We all make questionable decisions in our lives."

She wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at him.

"No video until he's weaned from the ventilator."

"Video link's going up tomorrow, Simone," Collins replied, watching the crumpled piece of paper roll under the couch. "You know that's a HIPAA violation."

"Out. I have rounds in an hour."

The other doctor shook his head but did as instructed, and Simone slouched in her chair and sulked for a few moments, acknowledging the emotion and observing it until her body had finished expressing it. Once the urge to pout faded, Simone took a deep breath, then resumed her assessment.

"He's right," she told the image, watching MacGyver try and fail to focus. "We don't decide what we mean to other people." Like every other patient she'd ever treated, Angus had friends. Family. Loved ones. Roommates who were spies who were also his power of attorney who were probably behind the repeated attempts to get patient access.

And whoever the entitled asshole was who'd put him here, it was very clearly not the patient's decision. His hearing was intact, he recognized and classified sounds, but he wasn't tracking motion, wasn't able to focus. He was demonstrating extreme disorientation and dizziness. And fear. They weren't going to be able to get him calmed down, not for a while. Not until that disorientation faded. Assuming it could.

Hard way it was.

-M-

"Jack, this is serious."

He almost laughed. "It's like drawin' a black line with a black Sharpie onna black piece of paper. Anybody with clearance to read it won't care."

Matty's look was anything but amused. "I have clearance, Jack, and I care."

"Oh?" He gestured at the screen, where his Phoenix internal employee file was displayed – disciplinary actions and official letters of reprimand scattered among the promotions and commendations. His most recently earned suspension was right there at the top for all to see. "Really? That one line right there, excessive force, that trumps every other line? Insubordination? Failure to follow a direct order? And honestly, why are those two split out anyway," he added, actually confused. "Pretty sure that's the same thing-"

"You're not helping yourself right now."

"What do you want from me? An apology?" Jack threw himself onto one of the sofas and adjusted his sling, getting comfortable. Might as well enjoy this ass chewing more than he'd enjoyed the last two days of debriefing. "Because she ain't gettin' one."

Matty was standing near the front of the room, hands on her hips, which meant she legitimately did intend this to be a dressing down. "Jack, extenuating circumstances aside, shooting Iris was the wrong move. If Bozer hadn't stumbled his way to adding veteran centers to the search parameters, those hostages could have been moved and leveraged against us. She was one of the few people in that convoy we _knew_ had their location –"

"And she was never gonna give it to us," he finished, shaking his head in disgust. "You don't pal around with those kinda guys for a few years and then get scared by some suit in an interrogation room. She'd'a held out for a good long time."

Matty cocked her head. "And you're trying to tell me that thought rattled through your empty skull before you pulled that trigger?" Her expression closed further when he started to open his mouth, and Jack decided silence was the better part of valor. Matty clearly agreed. "You and I both know you thought you were dying, and you wanted to protect Riley."

"I wanted to protect everyone," he snapped, shifting to the edge of the couch. "Clarice was bad news, Matty, and you an' I both know she was far from harmless."

"She was an asset that we should have taken in alive," she corrected with a growl. "You _knew_ that."

"So, what? I'm not supposed to make the safety of my team my number one mission?" He stared at her, a little taken aback. "Cause I'm pretty sure that's why I work here –"

Matty barked out a laugh. "How many more disciplinary hearings do you think you are from forced retirement, Jack? That's what I'm trying to tell you! You went off book when there were over a hundred lives at risk! You were out of control!"

 _You should have pulled yourself from the field after we found Mac and Riley_ , she didn't say, but he heard it loud and clear. On the boat, when John had looked at him and told him he coulda gone on the bird with Mac, that was Matty, trying to be gentle.

But she could have pulled him herself, and she hadn't. Which meant –

Which meant his fuck-up was being pinned partially on her. Back to her judgement on the entire op. That new 'excessive force' disciplinary mark, next to a two week suspension, wasn't nothing, because it could be used to prove Matty shouldn't have been in the field any more than he should have been.

Jack exhaled explosively, then pinched the bridge of his nose. They were in the War Room, a formality after the type of hearing he'd literally just left, but he was reasonably sure Oversight could see what was happening in there, which meant he couldn't come right out and ask her. How much trouble she was in because of him.

"Matty," he tried, keeping his voice carefully tempered, "if it's ever a situation of lettin' the bad guys take out my team, or accomplishin' the objective, my primary mission's _always_ protecting the team. I am the head of security of Phoenix, and my job in the field is literally to be a bodyguard."

"And your entire team was in the hospital," she shot back. "Not a one of them was in the field."

" _You_ were in the field," he growled. "On what planet do you think I was gonna leave your safety up to some Dutchies and Krauts?"

Not that he'd been able to do a damn thing to prevent Aydin from getting his fuckin' paws on Matty. God, the colonel had almost taken every single one of 'em. Only Matty sidelining Bozer as early as she did saved him.

Her expression softened, as well, as the same thoughts undoubtedly ran through her head. "Jack . . . you should have wounded Iris, not killed her. I know you disagree, which is why the suspension stands. Riley's a big girl now. She can handle it."

"Oh, like Mac's handlin' Murdoc?" he shot back without thinking. "I'm just supposed to let everyone rack up deadly arch-nemesises now?"

"Arch-nemeses," Matty corrected drily. "And we both know Iris wouldn't have gotten far."

Two feet closer to Riley would have been two feet too many. Jack suddenly felt tired.

"Look. If I could go back, I'd'a done a lot of things differently," he admitted. "But that? That was the right move. She never woulda stopped, Matty. You didn't see her face. It was beyond personal for her."

Matty watched him for a moment. "If Mac had been there, would you have killed her?" she asked suddenly.

Jack blinked at her, and she raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who brought up Murdoc. Are you telling me that if Mac wasn't there to stop you, you would have killed him instead of arresting him?"

The flippant answer was almost out of his mouth before he stopped himself. Hell fucking yes he would have shot that psycho motherfucker between the eyes. For messing with his partner, for messing with Bozer, for everything that he'd done to Phoenix. But that wasn't what she was asking.

And the short answer was . . . "I don't know," he admitted, haltingly. Because in a way, she had a point. Mac's absolute certainty that nearly every situation could be solved without loss of life was so core to who he was, and the regret that you could see in his eyes every time he was forced to seriously injure someone, kill someone, every time he couldn't save someone –

Each and every one of those lives weighed on him. He remembered all of them. Jack wasn't wired quite the same way, not to that extent. He could make peace with most of the things that he'd done. Lives that he'd taken. Mac viewed each and every one of them a personal failure, on his part, to find the right solution in the time allotted.

And to see that regret in his partner's eyes, if it was Jack that was the one who'd made that mistake, pulled that trigger, ended that life when he didn't have to. The thought of disappointing Mac, betraying his trust like that made his gut churn.

"Yes you do," Matty corrected quietly.

Jack sighed, then rubbed his eyes again. "If Mac were there, we woulda had another option," he told her. "I don't always see 'em, and he does. An' if Murdoc ever does get me dead to rights, if I'm toast and Mac's still got a chance . . . I'd do the same damn thing, Matty. You know I would."

Even if his last act on Earth was to let his partner down like that, at least Mac would be alive to hate him for it.

"Mac was in limbo, I was maybe shot fulla holes . . . there's no question. Iris woulda gotten to Riley. None of us have the skills to protect Ri from someone like Ri. Maybe Mac, but . . . I can't do that. I know I can't. Even if it cost us the hostages, even if I _knew_ it would cost us the hostages . . . I probably still woulda pulled that trigger." He looked over at his boss, apology heavy in his voice. "Because Riley's like Mac. She can see options I can't. As long as she's alive, she woulda found a way to fix it."

Matty was silent a long time. "You have a lot of faith in them."

He cracked a smile. "All of it." All the faith in the whole world.

They were better than he was. All he had to do was keep them alive, protect them, and everything else would be okay.

"They have that same faith in you," she told him, watching him intently. "And you can't be there to protect them if you can't toe this line. You can't do this again."

His smile grew, in lieu of the lump in his throat. "Back atcha, boss lady."

They'd come so close to losing her. Without Matty at the helm, her connections, her way of analyzing a situation and knowing exactly what to do – he didn't even want to think about it. He didn't want to leave them, any of them, but if he ever had to, his only comfort was that Matty would still be there to watch over them.

And he knew without asking, that if their roles had been reversed, Matty would have pulled that same trigger. She wasn't out in the field because Aydin had tried to kill her. She'd been out in the field because Aydin had tried to kill her agents. Taken Riley. Taken Mac. And she risked everything to actually be there, on the ground, so she could do literally everything in her power to get them out.

Matty blinked, the only indication that she knew what he meant. "Finish up your paperwork. Then I don't want to see you for two weeks. You can access the facility and use the gym, but you are not authorized for any ops, and your security clearance will be temporarily suspended."

Him using the gym was hilarious, given that his collarbone and ribs were going to take twice that long to heal, but Jack frowned anyway, because he knew that was what he was supposed to do. This was supposed to be a punishment, not time off for recuperation. "What about visiting Mac?"

Matty returned his frown. "I don't have traction on that yet. The Drs, Talbot are going to get a video feed to Mac's treatment room for the purposes of planning his long-term rehabilitation, but the road trip's going to have to wait."

Much as he didn't want to park it in Medical for two weeks, technically that was part of the facility he still had access to. Which meant Matty wasn't really angry with him. "How long before you _do_ get traction?" When Mac went under, he was alone. Hurt. Scared. Jack didn't think for a second that he was gonna hurt anyone when he came around, but if he reacted like he did the last time they'd pulled him away from Aydin – if he was afraid he was still with the colonel, that shit might not be real –

The idea of him bailing into an unfamiliar city didn't sit well. Not at all. Nor did Oversight's probable response to a second MacGyver walkabout. Not to mention he was good and injured this time around. If he didn't see any familiar faces, there was no telling what he'd do.

"I don't know, Jack," she admitted gently. "But I do know that right now he's in no condition to escape, and that he's safe." She'd said it like it was supposed to be reassuring, but then took a deep breath, and put her professional face back on as if it had never faltered. "I'll keep working on it. Now if you'll excuse me."

-M-

"Resume debrief. August 17th, 2018, 1300 hours. Agent Bozer, Wilt. Concerning Operation D364-02."

Bozer scanned the row of five people across from him, trying his best to look calm and confident. He was fairly sure the thin lady hated everyone, even the other people on the committee, and he was never going to win her over. The chairman was fairly ambivalent. Matty was doing a Emmy-worthy performance of a sphinx. The only African-American on the panel seemed cool, and hadn't thrown him any hardballs, and the last guy, near as Boze could tell, hadn't actually asked anything.

He didn't move a whole lot, either. He reminded Bozer weirdly of an accountant.

"Wilt, in a previous session, you testified that you did not see or hear any evidence that any of Colonel Aydin's _Bordo Berelilers_ were on the property or in the home owned by Angus MacGyver, in which you are a tenant."

Wilt worked through it, trying to find the trick, and when it seemed pretty straightforward, he nodded. "That's correct."

"So you don't recall seeing anything unusual in the days leading up to Agent MacGyver's trip to Amsterdam?"

He shook his head at the chairman. "No sir. Mac was his usual self, right up until the morning he left. I never heard him leave the house, and I didn't see him before he and Jack left on their flight."

"Is that normal behavior?" the man asked, his voice ever so slightly curious.

Wilt thought about it. "Yeah, pretty much. I mean, sometime we carpool, sometimes we don't, sometimes I'm doing work for other ops in the lab, sometimes he's working on a project . . . it just depends who's got what going where."

He'd tried to set a more casual air in his debriefs, just because the formality made him uncomfortable, and in two days – this was now just after lunch on day three – not a one of them dropped their stuffy attitudes, not once.

And in this case, it bounced off the chairman like oil on Teflon. "You stated that you believe he had been approached by Kadir Hakan or one of his men that previous evening. If that were the case, and he knew the danger he was about to face, why do you think he didn't say goodbye?"

Bozer blinked, completely nonplussed. "Uhhh . . . probably because they'd hear him." It was the first thought that popped into his head. "I mean, we're kind of casual about that whole thing. He's gone on plenty of missions with just a, like, later, you know?"

"But this wasn't just any mission," the thin, unpleasant woman observed. "You claim he knew how much danger he was in, and that he might not survive. He didn't make a single attempt to communicate with you, warn you, or solicit your help?"

No. And if she knew Mac at all, she would have known the answer to her own question. "We had dinner the night before on the patio. That's like, our thing. It woulda been weird if he'd said anything else. I think he mighta tried, if he thought he could tip me off in a way that wouldn't be found out, but honestly, I don't think he wanted to risk it."

The unpleasant woman spread her hands. "You live with him, Agent Bozer, and as we have heard, he is extremely gifted with improvising solutions in nearly impossible situations. There was not a single thing he could have left you, some subtle signal, that would have indicated to you that he had been compromised?"

Probably, but it likely hadn't been worth the risk. If Jack was right, and Maroon Berets were actually _in the house_ that night, it didn't take a genius to figure out he'd been in the crosshairs, and that Mac had been warned specifically not to tip him off. "No, but we are _definitely_ gonna come up with one after this." Once Mac was back on his feet and they'd broken him out of Mayo Clinic Gitmo.

"So you believe his silence was to protect you."

"I know it was," Bozer answered immediately. No question about it.

"And he never attempted to send you a communication after he left US soil?"

Wilt shook his head. Not so much as a text. But since his phone had been bugged, that made sense.

"And you're sure about that?" the chairman pressed, fixing him with a penetrating gaze.

Bozer blinked at the man, then glanced away and really thought about it. "Yeah. I sent him a text about Myrrh getting enacted, but that was just to keep his cover. He didn't reply to it, I guess he was at the courthouse by then."

"And you received no communications, by phone, text, email, or any other method, that could have been from Agent MacGyver, or passed through a third party from Agent MacGyver, between his flight to Amsterdam and the recovery of the hostages?"

Between the flight and the recovery of hostages. As if Mac being stabbed and left to die didn't factor into things As if he could have sent a text from his hospital bed in a coma.

Well, if anyone could –

"No," Bozer confirmed. "No messages." Except the one he was afraid might have been sent from beyond the grave.

And the unpleasant woman seemed to be able to read that on his face, because she pounced. "You told us that you were having a conversation with Agent Davis when you thought of the WVF centers. What brought up that topic?"

Bozer stared at her for a minute, then glanced surreptitiously at Matty. Her face was a mask of barely concealed boredom. She gave him nothing.

"Magic," he said quietly. "Magic brought up that topic." Most of the panel perked up a little, staring not at their papers but at him, and Bozer closed his eyes, remembering the conversation. "We were talking about how . . . it was impossible to make people just disappear. I was tellin' Riley that Mac had had this David Copperfield phase in school, and he bet our physics professor he could make him disappear. Then I was tellin' her how he used that same trick later in life . . . an' a story I'd been told about Mac and one of his grandfather's buddies from World War Two popped into my head." Bozer opened his eyes to find them all listening raptly– including Matty. He smiled a little.

"That story happened at an American Legion hall. After I told it to Riley, I just started wonderin' if there were that many World War Two vets left alive, and it occurred to me that every soldier would know where an American Legion hall was, which meant if Aydin's guys had been sittin' around brainstorming where to stick a bunch of old people, well, a WVF center made sense."

The quiet accountant was the first one to recover. "So it just happened organically, that you suddenly realized where the hostages were being held, and at no time were you given the idea through other means?"

Bozer was one hundred percent sure 'the ghost of Mac told me' was not going to fly. "Oh, y'mean did my comatose best friend tip me off while he was basically braindead? He didn't, if that's what you were wondering."

It came together much slower than it should have, and Bozer frowned, more at himself than them. "Mac wasn't working with the colonel, and he didn't send me some kinda pre-recorded message to get the hostages out. We'd already been lookin' for 'em for a long time, and even if I hadn't told Riley that story, I'm sure someone else would have figured it out."

At least, he hoped like hell someone would have. The passengers had actually had quite a bit of food left, but the news of Aydin being killed would have filtered to those four Turks guarding them sooner rather than later. It might have been harder to pick up the trail, but Bozer was confident they would have eventually been found.

Maybe just not all of them, and maybe just not alive. "Besides, all I had was the idea. Agent Visser was the one who was able to look up the statuses of those WVF halls, and it was Agent Morgan who was able to confirm a truck like the one at the convoy had been in the neighborhood. I didn't find 'em. We did it as a team."

If the panel approved of his sharing the success, they gave him no indication. However, they did drop the topic. Which was good, because it was fucking stupid. Of course Mac wasn't working with the colonel. Maybe he knew where the hostages were, but Riley said Mac had thought they might still even been on the boat, so if he knew, he'd learned it right before he'd been silenced.

The chairman flipped through a few pages. "Prior to your flight to Amsterdam, you stated that you were summoned to Director Webber's house the evening she was attacked. Up until that point, did you have any idea that anything had happened?"

That was also something he could answer honestly. "No. I was workin' on some prosthetics for an op, I packed 'em up and sent 'em with the agents, went home, made dinner, and crashed. Didn't see or hear anything until I got that phone call."

All and all, considering the gravity of the situation, the call itself should have weirded him out more than it had. And damned if that skinny woman didn't pick up on that too. "Had you previously been summoned to Director Webber's residence?"

He almost shook his head, but that wasn't true. "Actually, uh, last year's Christmas party. I think that was the first time I'd been there. But we ended up in a van with blacked out windows, so I didn't actually know what neighborhood it was in." There had been plenty of distractions in the van, in the form of libations and Dirty Santa games, so he hadn't even tried to count the turns and stops.

"And you weren't alarmed, to be summoned there at that time of the evening?"

Bozer fixed her with a look. "Listen, no offense, but I have gotten way weirder phone calls asking for way weirder stuff than 'get to this address and bring your murder scene kit with you'."

The thin woman raised an even thinner eyebrow. "During your work with the Phoenix Foundation?"

That was probably not something Matty wanted him to discuss with a panel of very serious people. "I live with MacGyver. If he's not asking me for random objects at crazy times of the night, it means he's probably got a fever or somethin'."

The panel decided to let that one go. "You stated that you were asked to stage the assassination of Director Webber. Did you have much interaction with her?"

He knew – he _knew_ – that he'd already answered that question before, and Bozer tried very hard to remember what he'd said. "Well, yeah, when I put makeup on her. When I was prepping the actual room, she was upstairs."

"And why did you think you had personally been summoned to do this work? Wouldn't it have been faster to do electronically?"

Bozer felt a broad grin split his face. "If they'd'a done it electronically, the intelligence organizations would have been able to tell the images had been tampered with. Old school gets you a way better result. The only thing I had to be careful of was that the makeup was HD quality, because the resolution of the images would have shown any imperfection."

"So you believed, at the time, that your specific skill set was needed, and not that Director Webber was intentionally arranging for your protection." The unpleasant woman seemed extremely unimpressed.

It was hard not to bristle, knowing that every single one of those people – Matty excluded – thought that what he did was simple. Like he just slapped a beauty makeup on her, instead of layering the airbrush paint to give her skin a true translucent pallor. Not that he'd had to try very hard – she'd been seriously pale. "Yes, I did," was all he said.

"And while you were applying this makeup, did you notice any real injuries the director might have sustained?"

Also something he had previously tiptoed around. ". . . honestly, at the time, I was still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that four guys had just tried to kill my boss, that Mac had been compromised, and that Riley was missin'. Outside of the work, I wasn't really paying much attention to anything else."

"You didn't notice anything out of the ordinary?" Even the suit seemed skeptical, and Wilt looked right at him.

" _Everything_ was out of the ordinary. There was a hole in the wall from a grenade. An agent had just died outside in the front yard. There were two dead assassins gettin' wheeled out. It's not like the house was quiet. People were everywhere, and I was just tryin' to do what I'd been asked to do, as fast as I could. Ma- Director Webber was quieter than usual, sure, but I figured she was tryin' to figure out our next move, and considering she'd just gotten shot at and blown up, I just wanted to do what she needed me to do and get outta the way."

He seemed to accept that. "Were you permitted to leave the premises before joining the director on her flight?"

Bozer shook his head. "No. I helped the other agents clean up a little, then Agent Carter took us both back to the Phoenix Foundation. I barely had time to grab my go-bag and kit before we took off."

Too late he realized that he wouldn't have needed to bring his full makeup kit if the director hadn't already been injured enough to need concealer, and Bozer hoped like hell they'd let it go. After all, every agent has a kit, right, their gun and tools and shit?

And he hadn't even thought of bringing his gun. It was Matty that had had the foresight to pack a firearm for him, and a vest. He'd truly been running on adrenaline and fear. Fear for Matty, sure, but mostly fear for Mac and Riley. It hadn't occurred to him that Matty had scooped him up to keep him safe until days later. All he'd been worried about was getting there and rescuing them.

"While you were en route to Amsterdam, you took a videoconference with Director Samantha Bosch of the State Department." This was a statement, not a question, so Bozer didn't do anything at all. The chairman folded his hands on the conference room table. "Why did the director ask you to take that call?"

And that was most definitely a trap. Because she hadn't. Because when Director Bosch had called, Matty was unconscious from the roofie Agent Keung had given her.

And despite memorizing Matty's debrief dossier from cover to cover, Bozer hadn't found any specific place that she'd admitted that she was more than bruised from the attack at her home. She'd never admitted to taking hydrocodone or any other pharmaceutical that may have impaired her judgement. She hadn't admitted to the oxygen, the surgery, or anything else Patience had given her on the plane – or after. She'd insinuated all her injuries happened in the fight with the colonel and subsequent fall, even though she'd never explicitly stated that.

Now, what she might have said that wasn't written – he was just taking a wild guess. And he knew that if he so much as flicked his eyes her way, that would be the same as admitted she'd lied to them.

This was it. He had to decide. Lie, or tell the truth.

Wilt did his level best not to fidget. "She . . . uh, she didn't exactly . . . _ask_ me to."

The skinny woman drew herself up. "What do you mean? Where was the director?"

 _Way to not be suspicious_ , he groaned inwardly. The cat was out of the bag, now. "The director was . . . I think she was asleep." The suit glanced over at Matty, and Wilt focused on the only panel member that he thought kinda liked him, the other black dude. "Okay, she _was_ asleep. And I didn't want to wake her up."

His only friend shrugged at him. "Didn't you think a call with the State Department was important enough to wake her?"

"No," Bozer said honestly. "The last two hadn't been. The director was askin' for an update I knew we didn't have. So I told her that."

Sort of. That and a few other things. He cringed inwardly as he realized it was fully possible that call had been recorded, and the panel had seen it. They might have already talked to Director Bosch, as well, which meant they knew he wasn't her favorite person at the moment.

"You are a junior agent with limited experience." And that was being kind. "Given the serious nature of the operation, don't you think you should have let Director Webber make that decision?"

Bozer mutely shook his head.

"Was there some other reason you didn't want to disturb the director?"

Like, because she was drugged and bleeding a few seats over? The guy was practically begging him to tell the truth. They had to know.

They had to know he was lying.

Bozer couldn't help a glance at Matty, and she gave him absolutely nothing. Just let him hang in the breeze.

She hadn't given him any instructions, hadn't even told him if she knew Riley had passed him her debrief summary. Honestly, Matty hadn't said more than three words to him since he got back after delivering Mac. Maybe that was on purpose. To make sure he knew this was his decision. His and his alone.

 _Well, Gloria Steinem always said the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off._

Wilt leaned forward, and clasped his hands on the table. "Any of you ever been blown up?"

He gave the panel a second to respond, and predictably, they didn't. They let him dig his own grave.

"I have. Not with the Phoenix. I don't think," he added quickly, trying to remember if that was true. It probably wasn't, but it didn't matter at this point, he was going to jail. "Just – like you said, me and Mac grew up together. Small town, nothin' to do Friday nights . . . anyway, I know what it's like to be near something that goes kaboom. Like, me and Mac never got hospitalized, it was never anything that'd get you out of school the next day. But it hurts. You're sore. You got a headache. An' she didn't say anything about it-" and that part was true, "- but I figured she needed the sleep."

His only friend on the panel blinked at him. "Even if she didn't explicitly say anything, did the director seem uncomfortable? Did you have some other reason to question her physical condition or judgement?"

Yes. She'd been very uncomfortable. And she'd had a damn good reason. "She was gettin' pretty crabby," Wilt hedged, making it look like he didn't want to say it out loud. Which he didn't. "An' I don't know if you've had the pleasure of gettin' asked the same question by Director Bosch forty times in an hour, but I thought, given the circumstances, that it would be better if I handled the call."

And that was the truth. Under the circumstances, it was definitely better that he'd taken that call.

The chairman studied him solemnly, and Wilt forced himself to sit absolutely still. This was it. The next words out of that guy's mouth were gonna be 'you're under arrest for treason'.

"Did you field any other calls or communications intended for the director during the operation?"

Wilt blinked. "No, I . . . I mean, emails from the team working the op, but she was only asleep a couple hours. I . . . I don't remember anything else specific."

"And you are aware that both Director Webber and Director Bosch have far higher security clearance than you do?"

Bozer nodded, and didn't say a word.

"Did you at any time respond to any of those communications using Director Webber's phone or computer?"

Wilt shook his head emphatically. "No sir."

Oh shit. Anything he did while Matty was under could look like he was intentionally impersonating her. And if he did see something he shouldn't have, that was classified, and she hadn't made the decision to read him in –

Then he was also going to jail.

He was going to jail a lot. For a long time. Maybe ever.

"Are you certain that any communications you may have sent during that time were clearly from you, and could not have been construed to have come from Director Webber herself, Agent Bozer?"

He thought about his answer for a long time. Lie, or tell the truth.

In this case, the truth would probably ingratiate him to them. Even if it got him ten to life. "No. I'm not one hundred percent sure," he admitted hesitantly. "I'd have to go back and look."

"That audit is already in process," the extremely thin woman assured him, and Bozer tried not to cringe.

"Is there anything else you would like to add to the record at this time?"

Yes. Please don't send me to prison.

This was literally his last possible opportunity to come clean. Jack had flat out told them, don't omit important shit. He'd gotten bent over a barrel the last time he'd left something out, and that something was relatively small, just one thing Major Oguzhan had said to him. This was major. This was whether or not the director should have been directing the op, or should have been in the hospital.

. . . and if she had been, what might have happened instead.

The real question here was, did he want Matty to remain the director. And the answer was unequivocally yes. Not because he liked her, and not because he was afraid for himself, but because she had made the right plays, and called in the right favors. It was the right decision for her to remain in charge of the op. Even if it wasn't the decision policy would have dictated.

Bozer shook his head. "That covers it."

The chairman gave him a good five seconds to change his mind, then finally gusted out a metered breath. "You are dismissed, Agent Bozer. If the rest of the panel would please remain."

. . . that had never happened before.

Wilt made a production of collecting his things – a blazer, a pen, and a blank notepad he wasn't even sure what he was supposed to have used it for - and dragged his feet leaving the room, but they didn't say a word. Matty's face was just as impassive as everyone else's, and Bozer gave them an awkward nod, then pulled the conference room door closed behind him.

-M-

Several of you have asked me if James is going to pop up in this story, and because we didn't know about James until after I had finished the first story, in my head there's an Oversight committee that actually answers to Oversight the man, and in this story universe, the only one who knows that is Matty. I insinuated James was the one Matty had been on the phone with, right before she said goodbye to Mac the day they unplugged him. But for anyone wondering who it was that insisted Mac be treated at this facility – in my mind, that absolutely is James MacGyver.

I have no plans to reveal that in this story arc.

So we finally got to see Mac! He came around, but it didn't seem like he was very happy about it. His doctor learned a thing or two about him, and we learned a thing or two about her. Jack's debrief is done and he's been suspended for killing Liris – and he tells Matty that he would absolutely do it again. And Bozer navigates his debrief and still isn't sure if what he did constitutes lying, and if he screwed Matty.


	26. Chapter 26

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

It didn't take Angus MacGyver long to start responding to them.

By the end of the second day, he actually tried to focus on Wanda. He was too dizzy to do it, but he tried. He started tracking movement a little better as well. By the end of the third day, though he woke in a panic every time, Wanda could calm him enough that the hyperventilation ceased, and though it was clear that he fucking _hated_ that ventilator, he understood that it wasn't suffocating him, and he adjusted to it.

On the fourth day, he actually calmed enough to fall asleep on his own.

Simone collected the sleep data, but didn't bother to review it beyond a cursory glance. He still had too many sedatives and painkillers in his system for it to matter how many REM cycles he was getting. Patients presenting with his injuries typically had long-term sleep impacts if they had any at all, and quite frankly she wasn't exactly sure how his newly rewired brain stem was going to handle things. His readings weren't wildly abnormal, and they'd be much more interesting in the coming weeks, when he was off the ventilator and sedatives.

They had to do some of his physical therapy when he was conscious, mainly because she didn't want him waking to unexpected or unexplained pain. He tolerated it fairly well; he never seemed frightened of either Wanda or her, even if the therapy itself caused him distress. Ventilated and still unable to move anything below the site of the spinal injury due to the shock, he was quite limited in how he was able to express that distress. Mostly it was his breathing patterns, and his eyes.

Outside of a stubborn refusal to cooperate with any type of active cognitive testing, he was actually recovering fairly well.

"If you understand me, blink twice."

He watched her, his blue eyes a little glassy this morning, and after a few seconds, he lazily blinked.

But only once, and not deliberately.

Dr. Parsons didn't alter her expression in the slightest, taking out a pen light. The LED was weak and changed colors on a slow rotation. The purpose of the tool was not to measure pupil dilation – the five cameras in the ceiling were doing that – but simply to attract his attention.

And it worked. As it moved from a green to a cool blue, he focused on it, and she used it to draw his eyes in a slow circle. Tracking was still sluggish, but he resisted blinking while it was moving, as if he was afraid, if he blinked, that it might disappear, or he'd lose track of it.

But after a complete circle, he lost interest. She noted the pen had moved on to warmer tones, oranges and reds, and filed that away for later testing.

"If you can feel this, blink twice for me."

She tapped his right arm on the shoulder, where diagnostic testing had already confirmed he could feel just fine. His sense of body position was likely garbage at this point; between the neurogenic shock and his recovering brainstem he probably couldn't tell if she was touching his shoulder or his kneecap, but she knew he could feel the sensation.

He looked away from her, toward Wanda, who had just approached on his other side.

They kept his privacy curtains drawn to about his elbows, so that he had a level of comfort that no one could sneak up on him. No one could suddenly appear at his side, he could always see them approach. Outside of flinching when they made loud noises, he hadn't really responded strongly to either of them. He tried not to close his eyes when they were around, other than to express pain, or when he simply couldn't keep them open any longer, but he hadn't once blinked twice when asked. She wasn't sure if it was a cognitive issue or he was simply afraid to communicate with them.

He was either aware enough and intact enough to know that they weren't familiar, or he was unable to assemble what he was hearing into comprehensible instructions.

Simone withdrew from his side without a smile, moving to the computer bay. Right now the screen above his bed, in easy view of their patient, was showing a series of hot air balloons slowly crossing a bright blue sky. She increased the frequency of red and orange balloons, waiting until one of the five balloons had drifted off frame and a red one appeared, on the opposite side.

Wanda was near the patient's feet, adjusting the compression sleeves on his legs, and it was hard for him to focus on her without picking up his head – which he had never actually attempted, other than when panicking – and the cameras picked up the exact moment his eyes naturally fell on the screen.

He blinked, a little lazily, and stared at the screen for a moment. His eyes picked out the five balloons, one at a time, including the red one. Even if he was no longer able to discern the color, he could see the outline against the blue sky.

They kept his focus for about seventeen seconds. Then he ceased focusing, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Another blink, just as lazy. Simone glanced at her watch and noted the time.

He'd been alert and actively engaged in his environment almost twenty minutes. Not bad.

And even though he'd given up focusing on the balloons, he was still playing a game with the ventilator. It had been rhythmically steady now for almost ten minutes. Clearly he was keeping an internal metronome, and breathing on a rhythm he'd chosen, rather than one the machine was configured for. She wasn't sure if that was a way to reassure himself that he could still breathe, or it was a conscious decision on his part, he'd calculated when the ventilator would kick in to start a breath, and he was actively choosing to prevent it.

Simone reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out her phone, sending a silent text.

 **Please come introduce yourself to the patient in Five.**

Then she waited.

It didn't take her other nurse, Alec, long to respond. She barely heard the badge reader chirp, and then the door quietly opened, and a tall Caucasian male with straight brown hair entered. Alec wasn't terribly bulky, he was more wiry than muscular, and because of his height he moved with all the grace of a Great Dane puppy. He was by no means intimidating, in either his body language or his voice.

Which made him a perfect nurse for her neurology wing. A white, tall, thin, dark-haired male named Alec, and a black, short, pudgy, silver-haired female named Wanda. Alec was easy-going and mellow, Wanda was exuberant and excitable. Even their names were on opposite ends of the alphabet. Their characteristics made it incredibly easy for patients to tell them apart – and to remember them.

Wanda looked up from where she was re-attaching the air hose to the compression sleeve on the patient's left leg, and she broke out in a welcoming grin. "Hey, Alec! Have you met our new patient?"

The nurse acknowledged Simone with a nod, then made a wide circle around the half-drawn patient curtains, so that he approached from the other side of the room, and gave the patient ample time to see him coming.

"Hey, man, good to see you awake," Alec greeted him, his voice deep and calm. "My name's Alec. I'm going to be helping Wanda and Dr. Parsons."

Wanda's voice hadn't been enough to attract sleepy Angus's attention, but the sound of a male voice instantly had his eyes focusing on the source. His metronomic breathing pattern went right out the window, and ticked up several breaths a minute. There was a similar jump in his heart rate, indicating the presence of adrenaline.

"You've gotten so good at your physical therapy that Alec's going to take over sometimes," Wanda told the patient, sounding happy and relaxed. "That's what he trained for in medical school."

"That's true," Alec agreed, approaching the patient casually on the left side. Whenever possible, they approached MacGyver on his left, which was the longest path from the door to the patient, giving him the longest possible amount of time to respond.

And Angus responded. His heart rate continued to climb, and his next breath on the ventilator was a little unsteady.

Alec did exactly what he was trained to do – he ignored it, and focused instead on the machines, checking vitals in the exact same order that Wanda did. He didn't touch the patient, but he did look at him, giving him an easy smile. "It's nice to meet you."

MacGyver's eyes never left him, tracking every move he made. Once vitals were checked, Alec backed off and joined Wanda at the end of the bed.

And the patient, for the first time, actively shifted his chin down so that he could continue watching them. The super soft, supple tube down his trachea allowed for the change without causing him observable pain.

"We've put him through the wringer this morning, so it's time for him to get some rest," Wanda informed both Alec and Angus. "Can you help me with the patient in Three?"

"Absolutely," Alec agreed immediately, then turned and gave MacGyver a friendly nod. "Get some rest, man. I'll see you later."

He stayed at the patient's feet, and Wanda reclaimed her position near his head, on his left. MacGyver glanced at her while she was in motion, but then focused back on Alec.

"Are you good, handsome?" Wanda asked him in her usual crooning tone. "Are you in any pain? Blink twice for me if you're in pain."

He was barely blinking at all, and he didn't refocus on her.

"I'll be back to check on you in a few minutes, okay?" She gently touched his shoulder.

He flinched.

It wasn't to the same extent that he had the first time he'd woken, when she intentionally startled him, but it was there. He wasn't panicking, though; the cadence of his breathing was up, to match his elevated heart rate, and it was clear he didn't appreciate having to split his attention between the ventilator and the person at the foot of his bed, but whatever he was feeling, he wasn't overwhelmed. He was simply engaged.

He recognized that this was a new person, and his first instinct was not to trust them.

But it was more excitement than he'd had since the panicking episodes of his first few days, and he wasn't able to maintain that energy expenditure for long. As soon as Alec was out of his line of sight, even while Wanda was still in his field of vision, fussing with the patient cart, his heart rate started to slow. He fought to keep himself awake even after both nurses noisily left the room, and Simone remained still as the door closed, suspecting he had long forgotten that he hadn't heard her leave.

He tried to re-establish his previous breathing pattern, and surprised her by taking a slightly deeper breath, as if he knew it would help him calm himself. His eyes fell closed a moment before they flickered back open, like a sleepy toddler fighting the inevitable nap. He focused on the screen above him another moment, counting the five balloons, and then he again closed his eyes.

Within seconds he was asleep.

Simone let him get settled, then tapped a pen on the edge of the computer desk. The sound was not enough to rouse him.

She left the air balloons to play, curious to see if he would count them again when he woke, and quietly slipped out of the room. Wanda and Alec were a little ways down the hall, chatting, and both looked up as she approached.

"That went better than I thought it would. He was pretty chill, all things considered." Wanda was still rubbing hand sanitizer between her palms.

Alec grunted. "Didn't set off the monitors, anyway. Not sure he likes me."

"I'm not sure he likes anybody," Simone told him. "Let him wake up on his own this time, Wanda, and we'll give him a few minutes to get that panic response under control by himself before you go in. Without Alec. Let's give him a couple hours to forget you, and see how he does then."

It would be the first time Angus woke up in an empty room, and she was interested to see if the lack of other presences around him would agitate him or not. It also gave him a few minutes to explore without eyes on him. It might tell her more about his frame of mind.

He was semi alert, he was tracking motion, he recognized people, recognized a difference between Wanda and Alec . . . but he still didn't respond to their requests. It was getting harder and harder to believe that was because he didn't understand.

If he could tell the difference between people, and he didn't trust a new one, it meant he remembered Wanda. And her. He was capable of building, retaining, and accessing short term memory. Which made his panic response on waking unusual – he should remember that he was in a hospital and that he was vented. But he didn't. Every single time he woke, it was with the exact same panic as the first time. There was some kind of lag between consciousness and accessing short term memory.

More and more that seemed like trauma. He was waking up with the expectation that he was suffocating. Given his injuries, that was understandable, but it also meant that cognitively he was far more intact than he seemed.

His refusal to follow their instructions was absolutely consistent. Either it was a language issue, and he would have to relearn English, or he knew damn well what they were asking him to do, and he was choosing to refuse.

-M-

"Holy _shit_."

To her credit, Patience Keung didn't respond at all. Her victim, however, cracked an eye open, and his dark face split into a wide grin.

"You are so squeamish," Leo observed teasingly, in his richly accented voice. "Have you not seen a cast before?"

Jack couldn't wipe a disgusted grimace off his face as he took in the two members of his home base tac team. "Jesus, there's gotta be a hundred of 'em!"

The African agent was lying in the bed in Medical, naked from the waist up – and probably also naked from the waist down, but luckily there was a sheet for decency's sake – and dozens of lightly colored, thin needles bristled from his abdomen and chest like porcupine quills. Patience had tucked the sheet between the bright white cast and significantly more tender flesh, and was industriously tapping two inch long needles into Leo's hip.

Jack thought he might actually be sick. However, his agent didn't seem at all concerned. Leo even craned his neck to fully appreciate the view.

"It helps with the pain. I am sure she would be willing to treat you for yours."

God no. No matter how bad his damn ribs still ached, he was _never_ gonna go there. Never. "I'm good," he declared, then swallowed hard, unable to tear his eyes away. "Seriously, it takes that many?" How was Folami even still conscious? If someone had stabbed _him_ with that many needles –

"I'm only halfway done." Pait's voice was brusque and annoyed, but her movements remained fluid, and Leo didn't so much as twitch as the next acupuncture needle went in. "Are you here being treated? I thought you were suspended."

From anyone else using that tone, Jack might have been offended. But it was Patience, and she had a kit with literally _thousands_ of needles right next to her. "Social call," Jack replied quickly, then cleared his throat. "Don't get up." He was actually turning back for the door to the room when something shifted in his sling, and reminded him why he was there in the first place. "I, uh, brought you a snack, but I see you're in the middle of a medieval torture session, so I'll just leave these here." He pulled the plastic bag of freshly cut sugar cane out of the sling and laid it on the table by the door.

Riles had been right. Slings were handy for all kinds of things. Might even catch the barf if he had to watch her put one more needle that close to poor Leo's –

Motion in the doorway forced Jack to put on the brakes, and Saito peered around the frame. Dalton immediately lifted his right hand and made a fist, signaling a full stop.

"You don't wanna come in here, dude, it's not safe-"

The Japanese agent took in the scene without blinking. "Hey Pait, Leo," he greeted, like Jack wasn't there. "Tackling the pain and inflammation at the same time? You're gonna wipe him out doing that."

Behind Jack, Patience gave a quiet grunt of acknowledgement. "Doesn't matter, he's not going anywhere," she said sourly. "It's either this or I have to clean up all the trick shots he misses."

Now that she said that, it occurred to Jack that there should have been a print of flowers or the Taj Mahal or some shit hanging above the table in Observation Three, and a quick glance found the pictureframe was now on the floor, wedged between the back of the table and the wall. He wasn't entirely sure it was still in one piece. The small trash can near the sink was still in its place, and several crumped wads of paper lay around it, as well as –

Jack backed up a step, half to let Saito into the room, and half to get a better look. It was a large, translucent white square. Then he glanced up at the ceiling, and quickly located the light fixture that no longer had a plexiglass cover.

Saito had followed his gaze, and gave an appreciative whistle. "He did that with a paper wad?"

"My partner has many talents," Patience replied flatly, and Jack couldn't help a low chuckle.

"I heard that," he murmured without thinking.

Leo picked up his head again, maintaining his light tone, though his eyes were more intent. "How is MacGyver? Also in need of acupuncture?"

It was Jack's turn to sound sour. "Wouldn't know. All we get is video. No audio, no updates."

Initially the video feed hadn't even been hi-res; Riley had somehow been able to switch the camera to full HD, which let them get screen grabs and zoom in, but even she couldn't turn on audio without tipping them off. And tipping them off was not something any of them were willing to do.

These guys weren't fucking around. Jack had reached out to a few of his buddies at the CIA and the only thing he could get out of them was that this was essentially a black site for US operatives. It was the place you put the operators that you couldn't put in prison, but you couldn't put 'em down either. Spies who no longer had the capacity to keep secrets, but had the physical capability to spill 'em.

The sheer volume of beyond top secret information that had to be in that facility was mind-blowing. He could probably walk in there with a bag of M&Ms and a few lollipops and walk out with the real story on who offed Kennedy, grassy knoll be damned.

And that was where the powers that be at Phoenix had decided to put Mac, while they tried to figure out how messed up he was. And even though it was a facility that housed US government agents, no actual US government agency that Jack could identify had any more clout with it than Phoenix did. This place shared information on their terms, and there was very little Webber could do to modify their standard operating procedures. He didn't want to know what negotiating that one little video feed had cost.

"Does he look well?" Leo inquired, his tone still light.

Jack shrugged, and leaned against the table as Saito fully entered Observation Three. "Spends most of his time sleepin'. He's still got the tube in, so he can't talk, and doesn't move around much." He didn't see a need to tell them that when he was moving around, it was because his doctors had decided to yank his damn arm all over creation, and you could tell from his eyes that he wasn't enjoying it.

"One of his nurses is an X-Man," Saito added, coming fully into the room to watch Patience work. "Black chick, long white hair."

"Hospital full of superheroes?" Folami seemed to mull it over. "It would take such a thing to keep MacGyver someplace he did not want to be."

And that was god's honest truth.

"Dunno about superheroes, but he's not breakin' out anytime soon." Riley was still working on getting schematics, if it came down to it, but the Talbots had spent no small amount of time reassuring all of them that Mac was in great hands. That he wasn't moving around because of the neurogenic shock. That he was sleeping not because he was being drugged, but because he was recovering, and his brain and his body desperately needed the rest. That even if they'd had Mac in Observation One, just two doors down, he would be doing the exact same things.

The difference is that he'd be doing the exact same things knowing his family was right there with him, instead of some stranger in a wig.

"At least he's resting," Patience observed, studying her partner's skin a moment before selecting the next location for more needles. "You could take a page from his book." The last was almost certainly directed at her partner.

In Folami's defense, he'd come through his second surgery well, and the nerve damage they'd feared had been avoided. The South African was utilizing alternatives to narcotics simply because it had been three weeks and he was getting tired of being laid up and fuzzy-headed. Jack had been there before. It wasn't fun.

Mac was probably thinking the exact same damn thing. Hell, he couldn't even talk, couldn't ask questions, couldn't play with anything . . . he had to be half out of his mind by now. And those docs didn't know it, and to hear Bozer tell it, didn't care.

"Yeah, I tried to tell my partner that, and instead he came down here to get medically cleared for the field." Saito glanced at the table, then helped himself to the bag of sugar canes. "Guess Carter'll have to sign off on that, seeing as Dalton here's suspended."

It was the second time someone had unnecessarily brought that up, and Jack gave the other agent a mildly reproachful look. In return, Saito offered him a stick of sugar cane. He shook his head once.

"You would let him eat my gift? You would let him take food from the mouth of a cripple?" Leo's voice was thick with disapproval.

"Only cripples that damage company infrastructure," Jack assured him, and after another long moment of pretending not to give a shit, Saito crossed over to his colleague's bed, handing the other agent a stick. Leo tucked it into his cheek and chewed happily. Patience just shook her head and kept at it.

"So you guys are headed back to Europe?" Jack asked, once Saito sealed the bag and returned it to the table. The Japanese agent nodded.

"Yeah. Second time we gotta bail before we get to make sure Mac's in one piece." He exhaled. "Unless there's a reason to stick around."

Jack glanced at him, and the other agent gave nothing away, chewing on the stick of sugar cane. Like it was just an innocent comment.

Or a blood oath that he would return if they had to get Mac out of that damn fortress.

"Yeah, well, there might be," another voice announced, and every head swiveled to find Riley, standing just inside the doorway. She was in the same clothes she'd been in since yesterday afternoon, her bag hanging from a drooping shoulder, and she was frowning.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Hey, Riles. What's up?"

She gave Leo and Pait a nod, then crooked her finger at Jack, and he immediately obeyed, not at all surprised to find that Saito also followed him out of the room. Riley didn't look surprised either. Annoyed, maybe, but not surprised.

"I'm not telling you this, because you're suspended –"

Jack shot her a look. "Et tutu?"

" – but Turkish intelligence just lost their traitor."

Everything else fell away as the words registered. The traitor in Turkish intelligence was the asswipe that had drugged and grabbed his little girl. The one intentionally left in play to root out any remaining Aydin loyalists. Jack took a step closer to Riley, keeping his voice low. "They what now?"

Her scowl deepened. "You heard me. Matty's keeping it quiet, for now, but . . ." She trailed off, and glanced at Saito. "You guys might end up with an assignment."

"It would be our pleasure," Saito answered coolly.

Riley gave him a small, almost shy smile, but it morphed into sarcasm before Jack was really sure he'd seen it. "I mean, only if you're finally off babysitting detail."

The Japanese agent raised his eyebrows innocently and looked towards Jack.

Dalton made a show of mulling it over. "Did she make you when you were tailing her the other day?"

Riley's playful little smirk melted into something close to outrage, and the look she gave Saito made Jack chuckle.

"If Si's been tailin' you, Riley, it ain't 'cause I asked him to. I'm suspended, remember?"

Whatever was going on there, Jack didn't want to push. They'd been home for over a week, but Riley hadn't indicated she was ready to talk just yet. He knew the debriefing had been hard on her, knew it by the circles under her eyes and the way she carried herself, like she had on eighty pounds of invisible armor. They'd vegged out in the doc's office watching Mac's feed a few times, and they had plenty to talk about, but never about whatever was eating her.

Saito had been with her from the second she got herself off that boat until just a few days before they landed stateside. He was with her when it all hit, which was exactly where Jack had wanted so badly to be. He was glad she'd had someone there she trusted, they both trusted, and it was pretty clear that the friendship that had started in Greece was all the deeper for it.

But he couldn't help a little pang of jealousy, that Saito might know more about what his girl went through than he did.

And if they were sleeping together, he'd fucking kill him.

"Well, he said he'd stop when you were able to reclaim your usual overprotective duties, but . . ." Riley looked Jack up and down, clearly unimpressed. "You're still a little banged up there, old man."

He puffed out his chest – and pretended that it didn't hurt. "I'll have you know I can be overprotective left-handed and one-legged." Which Mac knew – sadly - from experience.

Her expression closed down a little. "Let's not demonstrate."

"Amen," Saito added. "You're enough of a terror just with the sling. I meant to ask, how's that collarbone?"

He turned and gave the shorter man a look, demonstrating that he now had full range of motion of his neck. "Comin' along. That Turk gives you and John any problems, you let me know."

Saito snorted. "If we get that op, it'll be tied up with a pretty little bow before you even get off your . . . suspension."

"Oh for fuck's sake," Jack growled in exasperation, while Riley started laughing.

-M-

As expected, he woke up in a blind panic. In this case, it was a situation of his own making. His persistent reflexive gasp caused the ventilator to feed him more air than he wanted, and he choked. After that, it was a legitimate struggle to find a balance between his body's needs and what the machine was providing.

Wanda was watching over her shoulder, ready to intervene if the patient required it, and they watched his stats skyrocket. "Oh, this is a bad one," the nurse murmured sympathetically, and Simone glanced over her shoulder.

"Picking favorites? That's not like you."

The other woman batted her eyes and wrapped a lock of bleached-platinum hair around a thick finger. "I ain't playin', he really _is_ a handsome fella."

Young. He was young. But certainly not the youngest patient they'd had, by nearly a decade. "I'm going to remind you you said that when he's being a giant pain in your ass."

"Mm-hmm, I know you will," Wanda agreed readily. "An' something tells me that time will be upon us before too much longer."

The two women watched him fight for air.

As before, there was a delay between full consciousness and short term memory kicking in. His eyes were wide and wild, but at some point what they were seeing finally registered. He turned his head a little, in the direction of the ventilator, and he put forth a decent effort at trying to slow himself down. At first his technique only triggered the ventilator to engage, and after a few fruitless attempts he then tried to hold his breath, which resulted in the ventilator letting loose with an obnoxious blockage alarm. It was hard to tell whether or not he'd done it on purpose.

Wanda agreed. "Did he just intentionally try to set that off?"

If so, it appeared he did not like waking up alone. "Go." It was important that he trusted that when an alarm went off, one of them would come running.

And she did. Wanda entered the patient room with all the urgency an alarm like that deserved, and his head rolled in her direction as she hurried to the bedside. She hit the alarm, knowing the noise would only increase his distress, and calmed him using the same technique as she had before. Simone timed the encounter, which despite the added time he'd spent already conscious, took roughly the same amount of time to resolve. Letting him wake up naturally didn't seem to reduce the panic response, and once he was panicking, it took roughly the same amount of time for him to find a rhythm with the ventilator. It was like he wasn't learning – or didn't remember – how he had resolved the problem before.

Or, the problem was more than just physical, and he actually required an outside distraction to break the panic cycle.

Once she had him calmed, Wanda went about her normal vitals check and picked up the usual routine. The routine was important. The routine was what allowed him to begin trusting what he was seeing and hearing, as well as building a stable relationship with his caregivers. If he knew what to expect, and they were consistent, there was less fear of the unknown, and increased illusion of control. Setting and then meeting his expectations was key. Then they could start intelligently messing with him, and gauging his responses.

Once his eyes started shifting to the screen above the bed, and he started playing his metronome game with the ventilator, Simone picked up her tablet and clacked her way down the hall.

Those pumps weren't going to break themselves in, after all. But she had to admit, Mr. Power of Attorney's recommendation really had worked. Five minutes tucked under a heat lamp and a pair of trouser socks had made them almost bearable. Hell, once she got through a day in them and got those socks off, they might actually be halfway decent. And they announced her presence as she entered the room, she even took a few extra steps to give him time to connect the sound of footsteps with the eventual appearance of another person. Sure enough, when she came around the curtain, his eyes were there, watching for her.

He was approaching normal levels of alertness for an injured, drugged patient. Whatever disconnect between consciousness and memory, it was pretty clear his brainstem could handle the 'awake' function pretty readily. The seamless cooperation of the other sections of his brain would simply take time.

Wanda continued prattling at him as Simone completed her tasks in the routine. After watching his eyes a moment and testing his muscle tone, she inquired when his last dose of pain medication had been – and received an answer that she already knew – before she put his shoulder through gentle stretching exercises. Wanda used the rubber ball to try to distract him, which worked about as well as it usually did.

Meaning it didn't. Having a penetrative chest wound manipulated, at pretty much any phase of the healing process, sucked. Involuntary tears were a common outcome of this process, and Simone kept an eye on his stats as she worked the damaged muscles in his back and chest.

"You're doing well," she told him, unsurprised to find that despite the tears he tried to watch her. And despite the fact that it hurt, and that pain was part of his routine, he never showed apprehension when she or Wanda approached him. It was possible that he simply didn't remember, and every time they hurt him was like the first time to him, but he clearly recognized them in comparison to Alec. Angus was capable of making and accessing memories, so why was the ventilator such a struggle?

There was also the insinuation, if he remembered them and wasn't afraid of them, that he understood, at some level, that the pain they were inflicting was nothing to fear. For him to realize that physical therapy was good for him would mean higher functions were active and working. And if that was true, even if his short term memory was impacted, he understood a lot more than he was letting on.

Time to figure out if his refusal to communicate was a language problem, or a trust problem.

She released his right arm and circled him, trading places with Wanda before picking up his left hand and gently stretching his palm and fingers. As before, his eyes shifted as he watched. She intentionally held the hand high enough that he could see the limb itself, could see her manipulating his fingers. He gave no indication of pain.

"Can you feel anything?" she asked him. "Blink once for no, twice for yes."

All in all his hand was quite unremarkable, no longer even bruised, and he seemed to come to the same conclusion, because after a few moments he shifted his eyes to Wanda, who was unwrapping a syringe with his daily dose of antibiotics. He'd blinked when his eyes moved, but it was clearly not a deliberate attempt to communicate, and Simone continued gently manipulating his hand with a little sigh.

"He's probably getting tired of those hot air balloons. Remind me to change up the scenery a little, maybe some football."

His eyes shifted from Wanda and his IV line to the flatpanel above the bed, where hot air balloons were floating peacefully across the screen. A screen that neither of them had glanced at or gestured towards.

"Gotcha," Simone told him wryly.

Her patient didn't immediately look away – possibly trying to play it off, possibly not - and she set his hand back down gently on the bed. "Nice try, but too little, too late."

For another moment he didn't do anything at all, and Wanda clucked her tongue in reprimand as she injected the antibiotics. His eyes closed with something like resignation.

Simone carefully modulated her voice. "I understand that you don't trust me, but the fact is, that tube's not coming out anytime soon. The only thing you're accomplishing by refusing to communicate is delaying your own recovery. In exchange for your cooperation, I will give you an update on your condition. If we have a deal, blink twice." She intentionally used an adult vocabulary and multi-syllabic words, speaking to him as an equal instead of a child. Just because he recognized 'hot air balloon' didn't mean he was capable of grasping complicated language or ideas.

He left his eyes closed for several moments, clearly thinking it over. When they opened again, they focused on her face in the closest thing to a calculating look she'd seen yet. He stared at her for several seconds, deliberately communicating his reluctance, and then he blinked twice, in rapid succession.

Eureka.

"Good," she approved. "I'll go first." He'd capitulated, after all, and offering him information before she'd gotten what she wanted gave him the opportunity to simply take it and cease cooperating. She needed to know if she had an honest man or a cheat on her hands.

"You were injured, your chest and lung were punctured." There was no reason to give him any more detail than that, not if she wanted his memories unmolested. "You're being treated for those injuries in a hospital. That's why you have pain, and you're on a ventilator. It helps you to breathe until your lung has healed enough to work on its own. Do you understand?" She got an immediate, rapid double blink. It was a good sign.

"A side effect of those injuries is something called neurogenic shock. It's a type of shock that affects the brain and spinal column, and it impairs the ability of signals to move between your brain and the rest of your body." He was watching her intently, but his breathing pattern didn't stutter, so she continued. "You're experiencing a partial and temporary paralysis. The shock will lessen with time, and sensation will return to your body. Until then, we're treating you with physical therapy to keep your body healthy until you can move around on your own again."

He took the news like a champ, and while he finally blinked, it didn't look as if he was trying to communicate anything with it.

"While you were recovering, your wounds became infected, and made you very, very sick. That infection is under control now. You still have a fever, and you probably feel disoriented, dizzy, or light-headed. It might be hard to focus, remember things, or think clearly. That's a residual effect of the shock and the infection. You're still very weak. Blink twice if you understand."

There was no way to tell a partially cogent patient that they might have brain damage, and then expect that not to affect cognitive testing. For now, if he was cogent enough to be frightened by his inability to concentrate or to think, he could rationalize it to the drugs and his exhaustion.

He blinked twice, again deliberately, with very little pause. It didn't appear that he was greatly upset by any of the information, but the heart monitor ticked up just a few beats per minute. Low-level anxiety, maybe.

"I know that you feel very tired, and that may be frustrating. That's normal. Your body just fought off a major infection, and it has a lot of healing to do. You're going to need a lot of sleep. But I am very happy with your progress so far, and you should be too." It never hurt to throw in some encouragement. She wanted to be a source of authority, not comfort – that was Wanda's role – but it was her honest diagnosis. If he was capable of understanding the information at this point in his recovery, he was in better shape than she expected.

Simone gently laid a hand on his shoulder. He didn't flinch. "Now, let's try this again. Can you feel this?"

The doctor knew damn well that he could, and after a moment's hesitation, he blinked twice. "Good. How about this?" She squeezed his bicep firmly. This time he seemed to really think about it, but gave her a double blink. "Good. How about this?" She lifted his left hand and bent his arm ninety degrees at the elbow. His eyes traveled to the limb in question, which he could clearly see she was manipulating, but after a long pause, he gave one deliberate blink.

No.

"That's okay. I'd be surprised if you could," she told him honestly. "Anything now?" She pinched his thumb, hard. One blink.

Now they were getting somewhere. "You probably can't feel the rest of your body. That's normal, and it will fade with time. When it does, you may experience some pain. It's important that you're honest about that pain, so that we know if you're healing properly or not. Do you understand?"

This time his eyes flicked to Wanda, but he gave two blinks.

Parsons wasn't sure if that meant he wasn't a fan of the pain meds, or he was simply acknowledging that she was doing most of his pain management. "Are you in pain now?"

An immediate, single blink. That answered that. He didn't want them to put him under. Not that she could blame him – and not that they needed to. He was far too weak to stay awake for more than a half hour at a time, meds or not. But there was no way in hell his current drug regiment had already calmed all the pain she'd caused by stretching torn muscles.

"I need you to be honest with me," she repeated, in a slightly harder voice. "Are you currently experiencing any pain?"

His eyes shifted back to her, and the blink was emphatic. Just the one.

"I find that hard to believe," Simone said with a frown. She didn't want to drug him against his will, now that he was finally expressing it, but she wasn't happy he was lying, and there was no good way to tease the reason out of him. He didn't like the way the pain meds made him feel? He was uncomfortable with the idea of falling asleep? They gave him nightmares? Or was it something more simple than that? Perhaps he just didn't like the idea of being injected with chemicals of any kind?

"Nurse Wanda will check in with you, and she will ask you that same question. When you start to feel pain, tell her. It is much more difficult, and takes much more medicine, to treat increasing pain than it does to manage a low level of existing pain. Zero pain is not a reasonable expectation, but we do not want a situation where pain keeps you from getting the rest you need to heal. Do you agree?"

His eyelids flickered as he caught the difference in what she asked – understanding versus agreement. Good. He seemed to think about it, then gave a somewhat reluctant double blink.

And that was probably the best she was going to get. "Good. Nurse Wanda is going to continue your physical therapy. Are you comfortable with Nurse Alec assisting her?" _Let's test that memory, Ol' Blue Eyes._

He looked back at Wanda, who smiled encouragingly, and gave two blinks. Then his eyes seemed to turn inwards, thoughtfully.

"Okay. Wanda, I'll send Alec in when I'm finished here."

"Thank you, Dr. Parsons," she replied cheerfully. "I'm sure handsome here will appreciate us finishing up so he can get some rest."

It was another signal to him that they knew he was tired, even though he'd just woken from a five hour nap. He was adjusting well to the six hour sleep cycle, and she saw no reason to change it. With Alec as an accepted substitute, they could more easily staff the routine, and it fit well with her other patients. Sooner or later MacGyver was going to catch on that they never used his name, and she needed to think of a way to get him to confirm he remembered it without indicating the correct answer to him. If he truly actually understood what she'd just told him, she was inclined to think he knew exactly who he was. Just like he knew they weren't familiar, and he didn't want to communicate with them – even when he was experiencing pain.

Jesus, the things they did to spies. That he would wake up disoriented, ventilated, and paralyzed, and still be concerned with giving something away to the enemy was, at least academically speaking, utterly unacceptable. She needed his trust, or this was going to be a much longer process than it had to be.

At the very least, it was time to change up his stimulation. Maybe a nice, soothing rain shower, and then abstract shapes. That would tell her if he was having difficulty with any of the color spectrum, and give her an idea how well he could really see. Unfortunately, most of the good stuff was going to have to wait until he was off the ventilator, and he could move a little. Taste, touch, smell . . . all she could assess at this point was vision and hearing.

And try to get to the root of that panic on waking response.

-M-

Not much to see here. Except Mac, of course. Who I know none of you really care about, seeing as he hasn't really been in the last twelve chapters. He's awake, but he's staying put in that facility, whether his family back at the Phoenix like it or not. Jack's rattling around during his suspension slash recuperation time, but he's clearly getting restless – and he's still worried about Riley. And Mac's doctor is able to out-clever her patient – for now.


	27. Chapter 27

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

"Handsome . . . you don't feel well, do you."

He'd never quite closed his eyes, but they were half-mast at best and the tv – currently showing a flock of flamingos in ultra high definition – couldn't seem to hold his attention. MacGyver didn't respond, just looked at her. Wanda frowned at him, then reached out with a cool, wet cloth and wiped his face clean of any stray tears or sweat. He closed his eyes and let her, and for a split second, the permanent wrinkle of skin between his eyebrows relaxed, just a fraction.

There was definitely something off about him, and it had nothing to do with having just finished his physical therapy. His eyes had lost that clear, sharp look he'd had for the last couple of days and gone back to glassy. He had every reason to feel it, but if she didn't know better, she'd say he was downright miserable.

"Are you hurtin'?"

The usual, immediate blink. His standard. Seemed to be all he could say this morning.

No.

No, he didn't want anything. No, his physical therapy didn't hurt. No, he didn't need her to change the channel. Or move the curtains near his bed, even though he kept staring at the track that ran in a horseshoe along the ceiling. He wasn't hungry, he wasn't nauseous, he wasn't tired.

He was crabby, is what he was, and she almost told him so.

Wanda continued frowning at her charge, and then put her hands on her hips. "You're just gonna protest all day, aren't ya."

He didn't answer her – and she hadn't expected him to – and she glanced up at the monitors above the bed. His temperature was still hovering at 99.8 degrees, and had been for days. That low-grade fever was being awfully persistent, and she hadn't liked the look of his blood work that morning either. Creatinine levels on the high side of normal. So were his inflammation markers, and there'd been a half-hearted rise in white cell count. Everything pointed to an infection.

And she'd already given him his daily dose of antibiotics. A mixed panel, to make sure his sepsis was well and truly resolved. If he had a secondary infection, and one that wasn't responding to the current antibiotic combination, they could have a serious situation on their hands.

It was Mone's call, but the doc was crashed in her office getting a well-earned nap. Their most able-bodied patient, Mannuel, had had a rough night, which meant by extension Dr. Parsons had as well. If Wanda was going to wake up the boss, she wanted as many data points as possible.

"Okay, if you're not in pain, do you feel anything . . . new?"

The question got her about five percent more of his attention. He blinked once, but slowly, more like he was thinking about it than trying to tell her no.

And that was progress. "Do you feel anything right now that you haven't felt in the last few days?"

MacGyver closed his eyes, and seemed to use the ventilator to sigh. After a few deep, deliberate breaths, he opened his eyes again, and when he discovered she was still watching him, he gave her two blinks.

First yes of the day.

"So you feel something new . . . is it in your head, or your body? Blink once for head, twice for body."

He just stared at her.

Wanda tried a different tactic. "Can you tell where it is?"

A single blink. No.

So he felt something new, but he wasn't sure where. "Is it uncomfortable?"

His eyebrows twitched upwards, in a signal she decided to interpret as a shrug.

Wanda slowly drew the sheet from his chest down to his waist, and checked the bandages again. On the surface they were clean and dry, and she didn't remove them, but the flesh around them didn't seem discolored or unusually swollen. No telltale red lines leading away from the wound. "Is it worrying you, this new feeling?"

He thought about that for a while, and when he blinked, she almost thought it was just a blink, until he repeated it. Two blinks.

Yes. It worried him.

She frowned again, this time in solidarity. "Did you wake up with this feeling?"

Two blinks.

"Is it getting more pronounced?" She was careful not to say worse. If it wasn't discomfort –

One blink. That was a no.

"It just feels . . . weird?"

Two quick blinks. Her closest approximation yet.

"You can't get more specific than that?"

One blink.

It was the longest conversation he'd ever had with any of them, and the fact that it looked like it was taking him effort was starting to worry her. He definitely didn't feel good, even if he was just classifying it as 'weird.' "Okay, handsome, I'm going to check you over. You tell me if you feel anything at all, or anything changes, okay?"

He didn't exactly agree, but that didn't matter.

There was no unusual swelling in his arms – and that was despite the fact that he'd actually attempted, for the first time, to help her out during his physical therapy by trying to move himself. Her searching fingers detected a little edema in his abdomen, probably in his intestines, and after a gentle pressure didn't seem to register to him at all, she palpated the region like she meant it. He didn't wince, and his breathing didn't catch. Chances were, if he had an infection or a blockage, he probably couldn't tell. That could account for a weird but not quite uncomfortable feeling. His bowels didn't feel particularly full, and now that she had him on full alert, she decided to leave the catheter for the moment and confirm that the compression cuffs on his legs were working, and rule out deep vein thrombosis.

And his legs were fine. Just that general, mild puffiness in his abdomen.

"Did anything I just did change the feeling?"

He thought about that a while, then gave her a single blink. She fixed him with a disapproving look.

"And you'd tell me if it did?"

He seemed surprised by the question, but gave her two deliberate blinks. Yes he would.

Whatever he was feeling, he was more concerned about it than he was letting on.

"Okay," she said agreeably. "You keep tabs on that feeling, and if you figure something out, you get my attention, okay?"

She got a yes for her troubles, though it seemed distracted.

The only other thing to check was the catheter, and frankly if he had a kidney or a urinary tract infection, they'd have caught it in his urine by now. A quick glance at the bed said output was roughly the same volume as the last few days, and the color of the urine wasn't terribly dark. She checked his mouth and tongue as well, and the back of his throat, but it didn't seem abnormally irritated. Frankly he should have been able to tell her if he had an infection in his tonsils or throat.

"Well, I _was_ going to give you a surprise today," she teased him cheerfully as she headed around the privacy curtain. "If you think you're up to it."

He didn't perk up or appear interested in any way until he heard the water slosh, when she finished bringing the patient cart closer. The thermometer indicated the water was still in the optimal temperature range, and she tossed what she and Alec had coined a 'MRSA bomb' in the water. Just in case.

It still smelled a little like disinfectant, but she'd added some hypoallergenic essential oils, so the end result was kind of like a normal bath bomb, with a sandalwood fragrance. It wasn't too girly, didn't reek like Axe body spray, and would definitely cut down on the bacterial load on his skin.

"It's bath time!" she sang cheerfully. "And time to change your sheets. And I know you are very tough and brave, but I _am_ going to give you something to take the edge off. Nuh-uh," she overrode his single, suddenly emphatic blink. "We'll have to roll you onto your side a little to change the sheets, and it's not gonna feel good, handsome. I promise you it's just a little dose."

He gave her another insistent blink, and she huffed a sigh at him as she prepared the syringe. "It won't even make you drowsy."

At least not immediately. But there was no way he wasn't hurting from the physical therapy, particularly because he'd initiated movement, however uncoordinated, on his own. She had no doubt part of his misery was simply pain.

Still, it was barely half the dose that she would typically give a patient in his condition, and once she'd prepped it she turned and gave him her full attention. "You're my patient, and it's my job to make you better. I've never lied to you, and I'm not startin' now."

Angus watched her like a hawk as she injected the contents of the syringe into his central line, and when she was done she capped it and tucked it into the sharps container by the bed. Then she crossed her arms under her ample bosom and gave him an expectant look.

Second after second ticked by, and his eyelids didn't droop. He even glanced at the television, like he was trying to determine if his vision had been impaired. She cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Okay?" she asked, with just the tiniest edge to her tone.

There was no question about it. The glare he sent her was downright grumpy, and she burst out laughing.

"Oh, I can't wait until we get you off the ventilator. You are just gonna be full of spitfire, ain't you now." Still chuckling to herself, she pulled the cart closer, and got the washcloth and her other tools ready.

"Now for the relaxing part. Let's see what we can do with all this gorgeous hair."

She had a feeling she'd found his Achilles heel and she was right – despite the tremendous effort he expended to remain alert and detached, he quickly melted into a drowsy half-trance as she ran her nails gently along his scalp. She loved a good scalp massage herself, and even though the dry shampoo wasn't awesome, it was better than nothing. Wanda explained what she was going to do before she did it, keeping a towel over his groin to preserve his dignity as she worked her way down. He could clearly feel the warm water on his shoulders and his chest, and he only winced when the tape on his bandaging pulled.

"Sorry, sorry," she soothed quietly. "There, it's all off now. You just let me know if I hurt you again, okay?"

He'd slept through his first couple sponge baths, the first time because he was sedated, and the second because he simply couldn't stay awake for it. It was hard to say if she had a shy one on her hands or not. Probably not, if he'd been in the Army, but there was a big difference for some patients in being seen naked, and actually being touched, and sponged off, by another human being.

In his case, he was resigned to the fact that it was going to happen, and seemed to prefer closing his eyes and pretending he was someplace else. She spent some serious time on his upper body and his arms, half to lull him back into that trance and half to get a _really_ good look at that chest wound. It wasn't pretty, but it didn't look infected, and by the time she'd worked her way down to his stomach, he seemed pretty chill again. He didn't feel a thing when she whisked away the towel and checked on the catheter.

As expected, everything looked fine. No redness, no swelling.

He'd drifted off to sleep by the time she'd worked her way down his legs. Even though he was able to flop his arms around a little at this point, he still had very weak reflexes in his feet, and they hadn't improved from yesterday. She was getting ready to text Alec to help her with the sheets when her patient's even breathing stuttered.

"You okay?" she cooed softly, watching his eyes flicker beneath his eyelids. His next breath was a little unsteady.

He was dreaming.

Wanda glanced at her watch and marked the time, observing him closely. No body movement, no sign of distress other than the uneven breathing. His sleep should have been quite light, she'd given him a higher dose of pain meds than he'd wanted but not enough to sedate him. Still, coupled with that fever and the infection she suspected he had . . .

"Hey, handsome. Sleep easy, okay? You're safe. No monsters here." It was hard to remember to call him 'handsome' when he got like this. Sweetie seemed to fit better, but 'Sweetie' was her patient in Room Two, and the nicknames had to be as consistent as an actual name.

His heartrate ticked steadily upward, and it wasn't long before his blood pressure started following suit. His next pull on the ventilator was significantly more urgent, and the exhale had some power behind it.

An attempt to vocalize.

"Okay, let's not have two panic episodes in the same hour," she chided him warmly, and crossed to his left side. He was already a quarter vested in his fight with the ventilator, and Wanda firmly smoothed the warm cloth over his forehead as he struggled to wake. When he gasped, she took the cloth away, so that he could see where he was, and she gave him a bright smile as wild blue eyes fixed on her face.

"There he is! You remember where you are? Just breathe, handsome. You're okay."

It was part of their routine. Every time he woke, he panicked, and she asked him if he remembered where he was. It seemed to help him focus, and the act of trying to remember more often than not resulted in a faster recovery. Even though it still happened absolutely consistently, the episodes seemed to traumatize him a little less. The last few times there'd even been an air of frustration about it, like he was angry at his own reaction.

Or tired of waking up in the same hospital.

But this time the panic didn't abate. He clumsily pulled his arms protectively towards his chest, and she caught his right wrist as it scraped up towards the chest wound she hadn't re-dressed yet. "Easy, easy does it. Just listen to my voice, it's okay –"

He stared at her frantically, not calming for a second, and then his eyes drifted upwards, slightly askew, and the ventilator squawked an obstruction alert.

Angus was seizing.

"Shit," Wanda growled, and let him go – his arms were locked in the classic tonic seizure position – and she lapped his bed in a flash, slapping the big red button on the wall beside the door. It took her a second to get back around and silence the ventilator, and she did it just in time to hear plastic crunching.

Her patient's jaw was tightly clenched. He'd bitten right through the ventilation tube's PEEP valve, and maybe his tongue with it. His blood pressure and heart rate were spiking, and she'd barely gotten the cabinet unlocked and her hands on a muscle relaxant when the RED team barreled in.

"He's twenty seconds in," she called out before they even asked, and as soon as she'd done the math and pulled the dose, MacGyver was surrounded. The RED team lead was watching his eyes and vitals, the nurse on his left was keeping him gently restrained, and the nurse on the right was ripping equipment off him as fast as she could. She accepted the syringe and pushed the contents without missing a beat, and maybe ten seconds later MacGyver gave a full-body quiver, then let out a sigh through his severed endotracheal tube.

Which was missing the valve, meaning they couldn't attach a bag to manually help him breathe.

Predictably, the patient's next act was an attempt to inhale. Through a very soft, very supple endotracheal tube that had no hard valve collar on the end, because he'd bitten it off. The tube collapsed as the pressure sucked it shut.

" _Shit_ ," Wanda repeated, and dashed back to the cabinet to get an intubation kit.

There was no getting a new tube down his throat. Angus fought them like a trapped animal. Despite his partial paralysis it took both nurses to hold him down, and the Flexeril he'd been given hadn't been a large enough dose to fully relax him. By the time Wanda got his jaw pried back open far enough to let the team lead get the laryngoscope in, MacGyver was basically unconscious. All his vitals were in the red.

"I need a chest ultrasound and a D-dimer, make sure he didn't throw a clot," the lead rattled off, and Wanda watched almost helplessly as the three raced her patient out the door. Once the RED team was activated, they were in charge, even above a patient's primary physician. Dr. Parsons could observe, but nurses like herself and Alec were just underfoot.

She'd barely made it out into the hallway herself before Alec was at her elbow. "Shit, did Five crash?"

"Seizure. Bit his tube valve off, collapsed the tube, and had a full blown panic attack." At minimum. His difficulty breathing could have been exactly what the team lead was afraid of – a pulmonary embolism. They'd treat it instantly, he'd probably survive it, but if he'd thrown a clot from the chest wound, it could end up all kinds of delicate places.

Like in his brain, where the last one had apparently gone. With his blood pressure and heart rate so high, a clot could go hurtling through his system and end up almost anywhere.

Alec whistled quietly. "Bit through the valve? Damn. Did he crack his teeth?"

Wanda opened her mouth to light into him for asking such a stupid question – and then she realized she knew the answer. "His chompers were in good enough shape to about take my fingers off." A glance found that she'd ripped right through her latex gloves and skinned three knuckles on his upper teeth. "Great. And I'm a biohazard."

Her partner in crime sighed, then tugged her towards the nurse's station. "I can't take you anywhere."

"Then stop dragging my ass around," she snapped testily. "I know how to disinfect an abrasion."

Alec held up his hands placatingly. "Easy. You just seem a little extra wound up is all."

And she was. There was a pretty good chance that Angus MacGyver was going to survive with nothing more than some torn stitches in that chest wound of his, a sore throat, and some blood thinners to combat any clots. The seizure itself hadn't hurt him.

They had. By having to fight with him. He'd woken in a blind panic and they'd probably all but recreated his original trauma. Mone was going to have her head on a pike for this. They might be better off hitting him with a memory blocker, and it was her responsibility to go wake Dr. Parsons up and tell her.

-M-

He very nearly barreled into Nurse Tasha, and only the fact that both of them had their hands free kept them from landing in a heap on the tiled floor.

". . . Wilt -?"

"The Doctors Talbot," he rushed out, gripping her forearms to keep them both on their feet. "Something happened with Mac –"

He'd danced them around in a half circle, intent on Timothy and Melissa's office, but Tasha glanced towards the observation hallway instead, not letting go of him. "Uh – Melissa is with the director, I don't know where Tim is-"

"Go get her," he told her, then pulled away and continued sprinting for their office. The video feed was in there, maybe Timothy was too –

The doctors' office was empty. Not even Jack was keeping vigil on the couch, and the flatscreen TV on the wall showed the exact same view as Bozer's monitor upstairs in his lab - a bunch of medical equipment strewn carelessly in a messy semi-circle, and a great big empty space where a hospital bed used to be.

Bozer scrubbed a hand through his short-cropped hair and tried to catch his breath. Then he started searching frantically for the remote control.

By the time he found it, there were footsteps in the hallway outside, and the female half of the Doctors Talbot hurried in, with Matty hot on her heels. Bozer gave them both a nod, rewinding the footage and mentally thanking Riley a thousand times for not only recording every second of footage that facility streamed to them, but setting it up like a DVR, so they could scrub the footage however they wanted.

"Wilt, what happened –"

"I don't know." It didn't take long before Mac hurtled back into the big empty hole, surrounded by medical staff, and Bozer slowed the rewind until it was just Storm the X-Man and Mac. Then he let it play.

He'd rewound it to the middle of Mac's bath – which he hadn't been watching all that closely, for obvious reasons – but the camera angle did a lot to protect Mac's dignity. It was mounted somewhere in the ceiling, and they could see Mac's face clearly, but typically his body was at least partially covered by the backs of the heads of the medical staff. It conveniently made it impossible to see their faces or read their lips. Coupled with the lack of audio, all the video feed really got them was proof of life.

And in this case, proof of what looked very much to Bozer like a seizure.

The three of them watched in silence as Mac's arms curled up clumsily to his chest, and then the white-haired nurse dashed off camera. She reappeared almost immediately, adjusting equipment as the board over Mac's head started to flash urgently. Wilt glanced at Dr. Talbot, but she didn't look overly upset. Her expression didn't change even when more staff appeared, holding Mac down when he started to thrash. Pinned down by four people, his movements became weaker and weaker, and the last thing Bozer could make out was someone attaching a bag to Mac's brand-new endotracheal tube as they rushed him off camera.

He paused the footage, knowing full well that there was no way they'd brought Mac back to his room in the five or so minutes since the episode, and stared nervously at Melissa, chewing his lower lip.

"Well? What happened?"

"He had a seizure," she confirmed calmly, still seeming completely unruffled by what she'd just witnessed. "Tonic, looked like, lasting no more than a minute. He probably bit through the ventilator tube and when he came out of the seizure it was hard to breathe. If it were me, I'd take him for a chest x-ray to make sure there was no embolism, and to get a look at the internal stitches. Then an MRI to check for stroke." The doctor glanced down at Matty, who was frowning at the paused image. "It's not unexpected. As the shock abates, his brain's receiving more signals from his body. Sensory input may have temporarily overwhelmed it."

"So . . . he's gonna be okay?" Wilt asked tentatively.

Dr. Talbot gave him a bracing smile. "As long as he didn't throw a clot from the chest injury, physically he'll be fine. Seizures look alarming, but most of the time they're harmless. If I were treating him, I'd give him midazolam – Versed," she clarified, when it was clear to her that he hadn't followed. "It's used to treat seizures and anxiety, and interferes with the creation of short term memories. It's the sedative of choice for situations like this."

Interferes with the creation of short-term memory. Meaning he wouldn't even remember it happened. Not that they knew if that was even necessary. From the video alone, Dr. Talbot couldn't tell them if Mac was actually capable of making any short-term memories, drugs or no.

The doctor held out her hand for the remote, and Bozer passed it to her without argument.

"I wish I could tell you more," she continued regretfully, rewinding the footage again. "Without access to his test results . . . all I can really say is that I'm encouraged by his mobility. He had good range of motion in his upper body, which indicates the neurogenic shock is resolving itself in a typical fashion. He seems to be interacting more with his environment and the medical staff as well. You can see that many of his blinks seem to be a deliberate act, indicating two way communication."

Bozer had seen that too. The medical staff talked to him, and sometimes he would blink twice. But it wasn't consistent; you could tell by the way Storm's head would bounce that she spent most of the time she was in there talking to him, but he rarely responded to her. His physician, Dr. Parsons, was there less often, but Mac seemed to respond to her more readily.

Maybe Storm just talked _at_ him, whereas the doctor asked him questions.

Or maybe he didn't want to give them the damn time of day, considering he had no clue who they were. Bozer turned to Matty.

"Look, if he's awake and talkin' – blinkin' – whatever, don't you think he'd be a lot calmer if he knew we were around?" It wasn't like Mac had access to a TV showing all of them, alive and well. "Isn't there something you can do . . .?"

The director didn't look away from the screen, but her frown deepened. "It's out of my hands, Bozer."

He couldn't help a growl of frustration. "But –"

"We've been over this," she snapped, transferring her glare to him. "They will green light a visit when they think Mac's ready."

Which could be next week. Or never, if he threw a clot and had another stroke. "And what if-"

What if.

He caught himself before he said it; Jack had beaten it into him at least a year ago that saying it out loud made it come true. What if. Mac was awake, he was alive, his eyes were open and he could see and hear and he knew damn well what was going on around him. What if all this time went by, and then something stupid happened, and here he was just sitting on his damn hands when there was –

Was so much he needed to say. He needed Mac to hear.

He didn't have to say any of that out loud. Matty saw it. She always did. This time her eyes hooded. "Is there anything else you can tell us, Melissa?"

The doctor jumped readily into the suddenly uncomfortable silence. "Well, I can tell you it looks like he'd almost fallen asleep . . ." She'd rewound the footage again to the bath, watching Mac's face closely. His nurse had abandoned his feet to return to his head, and Bozer watched the numbers on the display above his bed climb. Heart rate and blood pressure both.

"But it was a tonic seizure," the doctor murmured, squinting slightly at the numbers. "So something upset him right before. He must have woken when he felt it coming on."

They watched the nurse smooth a cloth over his face, then she removed it, and his eyes were wide open and desperate before they rolled upwards.

She paused the footage again, studying the display carefully. "His BP's higher than it should be . . ."

Bozer was pretty sure his was too. "What does that mean?"

"It could be nothing." But she kept studying the numbers, letting the video run to pause it over and over again, watching the climb. "It's not alarmingly high, it's just . . . it's actually higher than it was after his physical therapy." Dr. Talbot absently handed the remote back to Bozer, crossing the room to her desk, and the journal she kept on Mac's progress. She carried it back over to them, noting the timestamp and the rate of increase.

"That and the low grade fever . . . he may be developing a secondary infection. Or, it could be stress. As he becomes more aware of his environment and his limitations, it could be causing some anxiety."

Stress. Limitations.

One, that insinuated that Mac knew there was something wrong with him – and thus clearly remembered being able to walk and talk. And that certainly lined up with the fear on his face every time he woke up, like every dream was a nightmare.

Or maybe waking up was the nightmare. Maybe in his dreams he was fine, and when he woke up and realized it -

"Keep me posted on any changes." Matty's voice remained cool. "I'll see if I can get you those lab results."

The doctor kept scribbling for another moment, until she realized she'd just been effectively dismissed. In her own office. "Matty, we're not actually done with your –"

But the director was already halfway to the door. "We're finished." Her tone brooked no argument. "If it happens again, I'll come back down."

Bozer didn't really put together what that could mean for a second, he was still too wrapped up in what-ifing his roomie to start what-ifing his boss. But the truth was, he hadn't actually seen Matty in days. And he hadn't talked to her – really talked to her – since before he'd left Amsterdam. He'd gotten a few emails and some busywork, and he'd kept his damned head down because he was afraid he'd screwed the pooch with the debrief panel.

But what if Matty's silence wasn't about that? Was Matty in an actual treatment room with Melissa for just a checkup, or . . . ?

Bozer watched Dr. Talbot out of the corner of his eye, and the woman frowned after their boss, but didn't try to stop her. Something was going on. And Bozer knew damn well that the Drs. Talbot had been read into it. Knew all about Matty's injuries – both the ones she'd gotten in Germany, and the ones she'd gotten before.

"Thanks for keeping an eye on him," he told the doctor, and he meant it, pushing the remote back into her hands. "I'll see if Riley's gotten anywhere with getting those lab results, just in case asking nicely still doesn't work."

"Wilt-"

But he was already out the door, jogging to catch up to his diminutive boss. "Hey, Matty, wait up –"

She was halfway down the hall, but instead of waiting – or stopping - she waved a beckoning finger over her shoulder as she ducked into one of the glass-walled examination rooms. Her military march-like stride slowed as she took in the clean white bed, the neat rows of supplies behind glass doors. Bozer followed her in, just a little hesitant, and then he decided to go ahead and close the door.

Oddly, the director glanced at the ceiling, which was black and unfinished, well above the exposed ventilation system and hanging baffles and lights. This was not in the area of Medical considered 'secure,' but it was also the area that had the fewest cameras. These were the rooms where agents got cleaned up from cuts and scrapes. If you didn't need surgery, you were patched up here.

In fact, it was the very room Mac had been examined in when he'd gotten out of Murdoc's sewer prison, and he'd used the glass wall to work his equations.

"Bozer, I know you're worried about Mac, we all are," she started, turning to face him, "but you need to accept that he's going to be staying in that facility for a while. Possibly months."

He was shaking his head before she even finished. "Not without one of us gettin' access to him he's not. We know nothing about how he's doin', Matty. _Nothing_. They just whisked him away and we don't even know if he's comin' back. Don't tell me this is normal because it's _not_!"

Her eyebrows rose dangerously, and only then did he notice her expression was still neutral. "Bozer, I need you to hear me. He's staying. Even if I _could_ bring him back here, I wouldn't. He is safer there than he is here."

He stared at her a moment, completely speechless. "Are you – are you sayin' that he's gonna be _arrested_ when he gets back?" Had it really gone so far that she was willing to essentially imprison him somewhere else, just so Oversight couldn't throw him under the bus?

Matty tilted her head. "I don't think that decision has been made yet. But I know that if we bring him home, his treatment is going to be geared towards determining what he remembers, and what he can testify to. Wilt, right or wrong, MacGyver knowingly and willfully aided a known terrorist. German and Dutch agents _died._ Dozens of law enforcement agents were injured. Whether he recovers or not, whether he remembers every second or none of it, someone has to answer for that. One way or another." She jabbed a finger in the direction of Dr. Talbot's office. "That facility is not interested in just the last few weeks. They're interested in holistic asset rehabilitation. They're not going to rush him off the ventilator so that he can speak a couple days sooner. They're going to go at _his_ pace, when _he's_ ready. And trust me, if I can't get to him, no one can."

Which brought them back to the matter at hand. "Matty . . . are you . . . okay?"

She tilted her head, her stiff posture not dropping for a moment. "Why wouldn't I be okay, Bozer?"

Oh boy.

He gestured hesitantly between the two of them. "Are . . . are _we_ okay?"

"You tell me." Her head tilted the other way. "I've been intentionally giving you space, Boze, because the last few weeks have been hard on you. Harder than I probably know." Despite the reassuring words, there was no comfort in her tone. "But if you think you're ready to have this conversation with me, you better be all in."

Bozer hesitated. "Is . . . something gonna happen to you, that leavin' Mac in Colorado's the best play . . .?"

"Happen to me?" There wasn't even a lilt of sarcasm. "Not that I know of."

The way she phrased it already answered his next question, but he went ahead and asked it anyway. "So . . . is something gonna happen to me?"

"Yes," she admitted, without a trace of hesitation. "You lied in an official debriefing, Bozer. Lying by omission is still lying," she snapped as he started to protest. "And the fact that you _just tried_ to justify that tells me everything I need to know."

"Matty –"

"Bozer, stop." She took a step towards him, and he didn't even notice that he took a step back until he'd done it. "Stop talking, and start listening. You lied to Oversight about pertinent details in an active investigation. Last year I gave you a pass. It's very clear to me now that I shouldn't have done that. That's my mistake, and it won't happen again."

Wilt blinked at her and kept his mouth firmly shut.

"They've completed the audit of communications from the plane during the op. The charges of impersonating a federal agent have been dropped. It was the best I could do."

The best she could do. Which meant –

"In two hours, agents will be coming to arrest you for violation of Title 18. Best case scenario, you'll serve only three years of a five year sentence. There's nothing I can do about the fine."

Title 18 was US Code. Federal crimes.

It was against the law to lie to federal agents. He was going to be tried and convicted and sent to prison.

She was telling him that he was going to prison.

"Your employment at the Phoenix Foundation has been terminated, and your clearance revoked," she continued, her voice never wavering. "It goes without saying that any career in intelligence is over. As an African-American male with a felony conviction, I expect it's not going to be easy finding employment once you're out. No one here at Phoenix can have any future contact or serve as a reference for you."

He was going to go to prison. For _years_.

And she was going to let him.

For a split second, he thought he might throw up. The deep lines around her mouth softened a little.

"Even with your power of attorney, you won't be permitted to access St. Mary-Dismas again. If Mac recovers and remains an agent, you can no longer be his roommate or have any further contact with him. If he doesn't, I think an argument can be made to allow you care-giver privileges. We'll cross that bridge if we come to it."

This couldn't be happening. He – he couldn't even talk to Mac? Bozer swallowed hard, wrestling his stomach under control. "Matty-"

"No, Wilt," she cut him off flatly. "I gave you an explicit order never to lie in a debrief. Not to protect Mac, not to protect me. Jack told you the same thing. That by doing so, you cast doubt on your own capabilities, and my decision to keep you here at Phoenix after I took over from Thornton. Did you think I didn't mean it?"

". . . no, I –" He stared at her for a long second. "I didn't think about that," was all that came to mind.

"Obviously." Her scowl was back in place. "Did you think I would protect you?"

"Protect me?" he repeated faintly. "I –"

"Well?"

He didn't realize he'd backed up until his butt hit the counter. "I – I didn't –"

She scoffed. "Did you think about _anything_ before you threw your entire career away?"

Oh god. This was actually happening.

He leaned heavily on the countertop, gripping the edges to keep himself from pitching headlong off the edge of the world. "I . . . I was . . ."

No. No, this couldn't be happening. It couldn't.

"I didn't lie," he heard his mouth say. "They wanted to know if you were fit to lead the op. I told them the truth. That you were."

Matty stared at him. "Who the hell do you think you are, Wilt? That's not your decision to make."

"Matty . . . if the acting director had taken charge, we never woulda gotten as much help from Harlan as we did." Jack had already stretched Wolff to the breaking point, Harlan never would have trusted a director he didn't know. "And the State Department would have handed the whole thing off to the NSA or the CIA . . ."

His boss gave an indelicate snort. "You don't know that. Even I don't know what would have happened if the acting director had stepped in. This organization is filled with competent agents, and has plenty of support. Even if I'd died in my house that night Phoenix would have actively engaged in recovering Mac, the colonel, and the hostages."

He shook his head, weakly. "No, Matty. The interrogations – the favors you called in – we never woulda been able to get the info in time, the convoy would have made it to reinforcements –"

"Oh, you're clairvoyant now," she noted darkly. "I would have thought you'd use those powers to see where your decisions might have led you."

He closed his mouth.

"Bozer, you are a junior agent in every sense of the phrase." Her voice was almost as harsh as the words. "You have neither the experience nor the training to make any of those decisions. All you demonstrated is that you're more than willing to disobey me, disobey protocol, and disrespect Oversight. And if you're willing to lie to them, you're more than willing to lie to me."

"No." It was hard, but he met her glare head on. "No, Matty. I wouldn't lie to you."

She scoffed. "And why should I believe you? Have you found a way to justify that to yourself as well?"

He pushed himself off the counter. "No. Matty, I've –" He swallowed hard at her expression. "You did the right things –"

She barked out a laugh. "That's your professional evaluation, is it? Bozer, the head of Dutch Intelligence was almost blown to kingdom come, and the director of the Phoenix was in the hands of a terrorist who successfully extracted intelligence out of one of the most resourceful agents you and I will ever know." The reminder of what Aydin had done to Mac stung almost as much as the disappointment in her voice. "Do you have any idea what the ramifications of those two events would have been?"

"I'm not saying you didn't make mistakes," he said quietly, and once he heard the words he tried to suck them back into his throat. It didn't work. He then immediately switched tactics, and tried to dig himself out. "But it's not like Harlan just blindly went along with it. It was his plan too, and he's a really smart dude. You did the best you could, and there are hundreds of people alive today because of it."

"No, Bozer," she corrected him. "There are hundreds of people alive today because of you."

He stared at her, completely nonplussed, and she frowned at him.

"Bozer, you made the connection between the hostages and veterans' centers, and you did it the same way you do everything else. You followed your heart." She paused, then huffed a sigh. "While that is one of your greatest strengths, it's also one of your greatest weaknesses. 'Do the right thing, damn the consequences' is the rallying cry of the youthful and ignorant. The real world is not full of fairytale endings and justice for all."

No. Apparently not.

Bozer dropped his gaze to the floor. "What about . . Patience, and Leo. Are they gonna be okay?" And probably the Drs. Talbot too, they knew about her injuries, and the questionable legality of that experimental drug –

Oh god. Was that what Melissa and Matty had been talking about? Was that why Mac was safer there than at Phoenix?

"You mean, did they also lie to Oversight?" she asked drily, and he couldn't quite bring his eyes up. He just nodded silently.

"That's none of your business," she told him brusquely. "And if you ask Riley to look on your behalf, she'll be brought up on charges."

He just nodded woodenly.

Crap. He only had two hours to – to talk to her, talk to Jack, get their place squared away for when Mac got home –

Not their place. Mac's place.

Bozer's stomach flip-flopped again as the same feelings of loss washed over him just like they had two weeks ago, when he thought Mac was never going to walk into that house again.

Now it was him. He was never gonna walk into that house again.

He wasn't going to be there when Mac got out. When he needed help, if he needed help -

"Oh, it's finally occurred to you that there are consequences?" Matty inquired mildly, temporarily interrupting his spiraling thoughts. "Worrying about others is commendable, but not at the expense of forgetting about yourself."

When Mac realized what had happened, he was going to –

Bozer took a deep breath, and forced his voice steady. "When Mac gets out, just tell him –"

She made an impatient sound. "Tell him yourself, Bozer."

"I-I would, but you just said –" But then he caught on. "Guess I can write him an email, though, right?"

"I'm pretty sure we have his phone down in evidence. Look at me when I'm talking to you."

He steeled himself, and did. She was standing right where she'd been before, hands on her hips. She didn't say anything, and as the seconds ticked by, she raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"When you walked in here, what did I tell you to do?"

He stared at her, stupidly, for far longer than he should have. ". . . shut up and listen?"

She nodded sarcastically. "And what did you hear?"

"That I'm goin' to prison," he said dully.

"Good," she affirmed. "What else?"

He opened his mouth, then just shook his head helplessly. "What do you want me to say, Matty?"

"Well, I was hoping you heard the part where you received recognition for saving hundreds of lives," she prompted him, hands still on her hips.

He gave her a feeble shrug. "It wasn't just me –"

Matty threw her hands up in the air. "Why is it none of you can take a win? You'll take on the State Department on my behalf, but just roll over when they come for you?!"

Wilt just blinked at her, and the director rolled her eyes.

"Bozer. Oversight has bigger fish to fry than a junior agent who tried to cover for his boss. Particularly when he's a damn hero. _You_ saved those hostages. You. You're standing here defending my actions, and not lifting a finger to defend yourself. When you have leverage like that, _use_ it."

Any tenuous grasp on reality he'd still had fell away, and Bozer just stared at her blankly. " . . . what . . . ?"

Finally, finally, her expression softened. "Bozer, you have _got_ to start being aware of your situation in relation to the politics. You can't defend me, you can't help Mac if you're not on solid footing yourself. What you did in that debrief was _illegal_ , no matter your good intentions, no matter how unfair you felt the circumstances were. I need you to _hear me_. You're not here by accident. Your instincts are solid, and that can't be taught. But you cannot afford to be this reckless. Not at this level of the game. And you cannot continue a career here if we can't trust your word."

"So . . . what are you saying?" he asked slowly, when it was clear she expected him to participate in the conversation. Because it kind of sounded like -

"I'm saying that disciplinary action related to your _second_ failure to be forthcoming during debriefing is within my purview, not Oversight's." The frown was back like it had never left. "And since my first attempt at correcting your behavior didn't stick, it looks like we're going to have to work on this like we mean it."

Work. Us. Words that didn't make much sense. "So . . . I'm . . . not fired?" he tried tentatively. "I'm not goin' to prison?"

She stared at him, for so long that he had to consciously stop himself from squirming. Then she pursed her lips.

"I haven't decided," she finally declared. And then she marched right past him and let herself out.

-M-

Simone barked a humorless laugh as she rounded the corner, plucking a tablet off the nurse's cart. "And if you hadn't given them video access until he was off the ventilator, it would be a non-issue. If _only_ one of your staff had seen that coming."

Dr. Collins paused with her as she logged into the tablet. "Such a heavy cross to bear. Would you like a hand with it?"

Har har. "What do you want from me?" She held up the tablet for emphasis, now displaying MacGyver's diagnostic results. "He had a full system shutdown, and a week later he was thrown on a transcontinental flight and shipped here. He can't stay awake longer than a couple hours at a time, and I'm still not totally sure his kidneys aren't going to fall out if we turn him over. We've done very basic cognitive testing, and he's progressing about how you'd expect. It's going to take weeks to get a preliminary evaluation."

He gave her a mild look. "Can you at least share anything encouraging?"

"Despite his best efforts he's not dead."

Seth narrowed his eyes, and Simone rolled her own and started down the hallway, not missing the fact that the three nurses who had been there moments before were now nowhere to be seen.

Well, Wanda _had_ told her that they 'didn't like it when mommy and daddy fight.'

She didn't, either. Just like she didn't like that camera, and those vultures at whatever intelligence agency watching their every move. If Collins hadn't caved on letting them have that camera, they'd never have known Angus had had a seizure. And they wouldn't be screaming for an update. "Look, all I can tell you right now is that he's stubborn, and I think he's deliberately lying to us. At the very least, he's got the mental faculties of a four year old."

"Hello, pot. It's good to see you again."

Parsons shot her boss a glare. "The patient seems to be responding well to treatment and shows daily physical and neurological improvement. If his progress continues at the current rate, I'll be able to provide you my preliminary evaluation in three weeks."

Seth gaped at her comically, then staggered into the wall beside them. "Le gasp," he choked out, and clutched his non-existent string of pearls for emphasis.

Simone shook her head and kept walking.

He recovered instantly – unfortunately - and caught up to her in only a few strides. "And to think, all this time you've been fully capable of responding like a professional physician. Did it hurt?"

"Regardless of the method, there's nothing to report," she growled. "I don't know anything yet. I can say it in five words or five hundred, it's the same damn information, that they very clearly do not want to hear. Reset their expectations to the four week window we initially agreed upon and be done with it. And remind me about this the next time you tell me I should get involved in the politics."

When he didn't rise to the bait, she frowned, and brought them to a stop outside the patient's door. "Seriously?" These people had seriously cowed the great Seth Collins?

He pulled off his gold-rimmed glasses and rubbed the right lens with a hankie. "Let's just say I can relate to their frustration, and I'd like to maintain a good working relationship with the interested party." He held the glasses up to the light, inspecting them critically. "I don't think I need to tell you that your patient's part of a tightly knit team. I understand that you don't want to mislead them or give them false hope, but no information at all is, psychologically speaking, potentially more dangerous."

"Really?" she asked drily. "You're really going there? With me?"

He replaced his glasses, and started folding the handkerchief with a sigh. "Simone, you're a brilliant doctor, but there are a lot of worried people who seem, by your own admission, to genuinely care about him. I know you'd prefer to work in a vacuum, but that's not going to happen with this one. They need just as much reassurance as your patient does."

"Too bad all my beds are full. Guess they'll have to wait."

He tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket, and withdrew his phone. "The video conference is in twenty minutes. Try not to be a giant –"

"Bite me."

He wisely didn't respond to that, and Simone sighed, got her frown out of the way, and then badged into the room.

Wanda was already there, having just gotten the patient settled, and MacGyver's head was rolling around groggily on the pillows. He didn't seem terribly distressed, just disoriented, and she chalked that up to the anti-anxiety component of the midazolam. The trip down the hallway had probably been a little dizzying, but his eyes managed to focus on her, once he realized she was there.

"Do you know where you are?" she asked him in a neutral tone. "Blink once for no, twice for yes."

His eyes drifted slightly to his right, then back on her. Definitely dizzy. He didn't respond either way.

"You're in your room in the hospital," she informed him. "You had a seizure. Do you remember?"

His attention sharpened, and he blinked, but it seemed like it was just a blink. She gave him ample opportunity to respond, but he didn't. He simply watched her.

If she hadn't seen his MRI with her own eyes, his lack of engagement might have worried her. But she had, and she knew damn well there'd been no neurological damage as a result of the seizure. He was deeply relaxed and calm from the sedatives, so either he didn't think answering her was important enough to bother with, or –

Or he felt pain where he hadn't been feeling pain earlier, and was suspicious.

Simone stifled her frown effortlessly. "You may feel some oral discomfort. During the seizure, the muscles of your jaw contracted and crushed the valve on the ventilation tube. While it was disconnected, it was harder for you to breathe. We've put a guard around the tube so that can't happen again, but your jaw and teeth may be a little sore for a few days as you get used to it. You may also feel some sharp pains inside your chest and your lungs, but there was no damage done. Just a few pulled stitches, that have already been repaired."

He didn't attempt to communicate, but he did glance towards Wanda, who was gently adjusting some of the many wires now nestled in his hair and trailing off his forehead and scalp.

"We're putting some new monitors on you. They'll help warn us of another seizure." Along with a vast array of other cognitive testing, but there was no reason to share those details with him. Particularly in light of how unforthcoming he was being with them. The seizure gave her a good excuse to place those sensors without arousing too much suspicion or concern from him.

Besides. She had a bone to pick with him. "You may also be aware of a general pain and pressure in your left ear."

His eyes cut back to her, and she raised an eyebrow. "We discussed earlier that you need to be honest about any pain or discomfort you feel, and that refusing to communicate with us delays your recovery. You've developed an infection in your left ear, that may have played a role in causing the seizure. Had you told us about it, we would have found the infection sooner, and the seizure could have been avoided."

The infection was deep enough in there that there'd been no external signs, and since they hadn't been dumping saline in there since he'd regained consciousness, it hadn't made the top ten list of most likely infection sites. And he could feel his ears just fine. He might not know exactly where his ears _were_ , his brainstem could still be playing tricks on him from a general body awareness perspective, but he could certainly feel the pain and soreness _somewhere_.

And he hadn't told them about it.

"The infection is immune to the panel of antibiotics you were taking before, so I have prescribed stronger medication to make sure we take of it. I've also adjusted some of your other medication accordingly." As she expected, his look sharpened further at that, and she carefully didn't respond to his glare at all.

A seizure didn't faze him, but potentially being sedated definitely did.

"The new medications may make you nauseous. If you start to feel discomfort, you should tell Nurse Wanda as soon as it starts. Do you understand?"

He stared at her for a long moment before he gave her two blinks. Not agreement. Just understanding.

"Good." His impromptu visits to Imaging and Radiology had given Wanda time to change his sheets and get the room ready. Given all the excitement, she was fairly sure he hadn't even noticed the new equipment. "Nurse Wanda said you told her you felt strange before the seizure. Do you remember?"

He glanced at Wanda, who gave him an encouraging a smile, and blinked once.

No.

Given his neurological state and the Versed, coupled with the effects of the seizure – and she was fairly sure it was simply a brief spasm of his brainstem, which was temporarily overloaded by information from his spinal column – it was hard to say whether he could remember much of the morning or not. She wasn't sure what he thought lying about that detail would get him, so she was inclined to believe him.

"If you feel something strange, or new, it's important to let us know. Do you understand?"

Two blinks. Again, not agreement. Just comprehension. And no guarantee that he truly did actually understand her, as opposed to simply guessing what the 'right' answer was.

"You're doing very well," she told him, and warmed her tone just slightly. "I understand that you're frustrated, and maybe even frightened, but you should be very pleased with your progress. As the shock abates and you get more feeling in your body, there's a chance this could happen again. The monitor should give us all warning, but if not, just try to stay calm. We'll get you through this."

He didn't respond, he didn't even move, and Simone passed her tablet to Nurse Wanda – which she didn't need to do, but it transferred his attention away from her – and pulled out her phone to check her calendar. She had a meeting labeled "Behave Yourself" in about two minutes.

"I'll be back in an hour to see how you two are doing," she told them both, setting expectations in light of the major change to MacGyver's routine, and left the room, heading not for her office but the row of tasteful conference rooms used when they needed to communicate updates to other agencies.

Between the seizure, the sedation, and the many diagnostic tests, it would be better for the patient if Wanda could keep him awake for the next hour, but she wasn't going to put any money on it. He just didn't have the strength yet to power through. And honestly, while the six hour sleep cycle definitely agreed with him, it wouldn't kill them to adjust it temporarily. She just needed to make sure they could staff it in light of the other patients under her care.

Simone entered Conference Room Four with about twenty seconds to spare, and the only other person in the room was her boss, who didn't look surprised or worried in the slightest.

"Did you successfully regain your patient's trust?" Seth asked, artfully arranging an empty folder and pen on the conference room table.

Simone threw herself into the chair beside him, glaring at the videocamera on the wall. The light was still red; the conference hadn't started yet.

"I never had my patient's trust in the first place," she told him sourly.

And it was very clear that was becoming a problem.

Dr. Collins simply heaved a quiet sigh. "You could kill two birds with one stone here, Simone."

Let the bloody Phoenix Foundation have their way. Give physical access to Mr. Power of Attorney. Let him interact with her patient, try to reassure him that he was safe.

"He's not ready."

"He's not Howard," Seth reminded her gently.

"I said no," she snapped, even as the room speakers chimed to alert them of an incoming call. "I don't care what you owe this 'interested party.' It's not in the patient's best interest."

Seth paused, his finger hovering over the touchscreen control. "Are you sure about that, Dr. Parsons?" He held her gaze a moment, then tapped the green 'Accept Call' button.

-M-

I know that a few of you are probably worried that I've done some serious damage to Mac – and I suspect that he's starting to worry about the same thing, now that he can stay awake longer than an hour at a time. In the original Turkey Day story, I sort of glossed over most of his physical recovery because in my mind, it was unremarkable – in exactly the same way the pilot glossed over how he even got out of Lake Como, let alone the months of rehab. But in this case, I thought it would be more fun to explore because a gunshot is a gunshot to these guys. Potentially losing his ability to think would be a very different animal than getting shot, or losing a limb. His brain can help him compensate for physical damage, but his body can't help him compensate for neurological damage. I think that possibility would scare him to death.

Not to mention he's also having more than a little trouble with the physical aspects too.

To recap – Mac has adopted the two steps forward, one step back approach to his recovery. Bozer talked to Matty for the first time since the debriefings, and learned that lying in debriefings, no matter the reason, is a really bad idea. Dr. Parsons is still resisting changing her treatment plan, and it's hinted that she has a very good reason for not wanting to do so – but her boss, and Phoenix, are giving her a lot to think about.


	28. Chapter 28

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

There is a reference to a conversation Jack and Mac had that occurred in my story Ground Rules, as well as a conversation that occurred in the original Turkey Day, after the team tracked Mac down to the Boys And Girls Club. You don't have to have read either story to understand this chapter, but honestly if you've made it to Chapter 28 of this story, you'd probably really enjoy the other two as well.

-M-

 **FOUR DAYS LATER**

"I'm telling you, man, I thought for sure I was done. I mean, she was willin' to let Mac go to prison back when we thought he accidentally killed that cartel dude in LA, same thing, right?"

Jack smirked as he guided the car through the remarkably polite Grand Junction traffic. "Your voice climbs any higher, Boze, Imma start calling you Mickey."

It took the younger man a second to catch on that he meant the mouse, not the drink, and Jack interrupted Bozer's spluttering with an easy laugh. "Relax, dude. You won't be in the doghouse forever. You gotta _really_ fuck up for that."

Jack knew that better than most people.

Wilt huffed in the passenger seat, barely remembering to watch his side mirror like he was supposed to. "Pretty sure that's exactly what I did," he grumped, this time pitching his voice lower than the plaintive whine it had previously risen to. "I thought I was protecting her, right? Isn't that what we're supposed to do?"

"Not when it comes to Oversight." He glanced over at the younger man. "Dude, one, you can't protect your boss from _her_ boss, not unless you got a hell of a card up your sleeve. Two, I told you to think that through. You don't screw with Oversight. If they're involved, they already know everything anyway. All they're doin' is testin' to see if you know they know. More to the point, Matty can't help _you_ if Oversight decides you're done."

Honestly, he hadn't been quite sure what advice to give Bozer. He'd been fairly honest in his own debrief, they hadn't even asked him about Matty. They'd been way too pissed off about losing Clarice. Probably because the hacker had compromised Camp Bondsteel last year, and they wanted to make damn sure she hadn't done anything else after she'd snuck Aydin's guys in there to load up on weapons.

If they _had_ asked him if he thought Matty was injured, he would have said basically the same thing Bozer had. Yeah, she was moving a little stiff, but she'd done got herself blowed up a couple days before, and she wasn't a spring chicken any more than he was.

And in all likelihood, Matty had probably come down on Bozer like the Hun she was because Wilt had scared her. Oversight wasn't too fond of the way their li'l mascot had ascended the ranks so quickly, nor of the reasons why. He doubted they knew Bozer had left out that little detail last year, that the sniper who took down the villa had known Bozer's name because Mac had told 'em. But Matty did. And for Bozer to walk in there like there was anything he could say that would make or break Matty's fate was –

Was heartwarming. But dumb. And if Oversight had decided to flex their muscles and punish Boze, that was one less person who would be there to watch out for Mac when he got back.

Of their little team, Bozer was the closest thing to a diplomat they had. Mac was too focused on science and logic to be effective in the smarmy world of politics, Riley had no patience for people, and Jack was all out of fucks to give at this point. If ever Matty was going to turn one of them into a politically savvy negotiator, it would be his silver-tongued friend pouting in the passenger seat.

He'd just gotten a crash course in Phoenix politics, at any rate, and Jack knew there were many more lessons coming. Matty had found a way to make the first one unforgettable, and it was a lesson every agent needed to learn.

"Listen, dude. Rule number one in any rescue scenario, you gotta take care of you before you can jump in the water to rescue anyone else. If you don't, two people drown instead of one." He nodded his head towards the windshield. "So keep your eyes open, and start takin' notes. We can't get Mac outta here until we figure out how we'd get _us_ outta here."

Bozer sat up a little straighter as Jack brought the rental around, easing it into the circular drive that was clearly marked St. Mary-Dismas Medical Center.

The decorative gate had gone to a lot of trouble to look like wrought iron, but it was solid steel, and the track was buried quite deep into the concrete. Even only partially closed it could probably bring a fully loaded garbage truck to a dead stop. The drive surrounded an oval of beautiful gardens and concrete seating. Each bench could be upended for cover, and the flowers and bushes were tall enough to hide a prone man, but thin enough that a sniper could shoot right through them. What Jack had seen of the brick wall that surrounded the facility was almost two feet thick.

"Like blowin' a hole in Helm's Deep," he muttered.

Bozer just grunted an assent. "I told you. Damn fortress."

A lot of the architecture actually called back to tried but true fortifications, because it was a medical center, and it was easy to fold those kinds of structures into what people normally expected when they heard the word 'hospital.' There was a metric shitload of glass on the building, and not all of it could be reinforced, but Jack was pretty damn sure the first two floors were. The third and fourth stories had ditched the floor to ceiling windows in favor of more typical fare, and offered a distinct lack of easy sniping by way of vertical blinds.

Probably the patient rooms for the permanent residents. Once they got up there, they'd spilled their secrets – or never would. High value targets would be closer to ground. Easier to evac. The dock was half the size of a football field, they could get a damn tour bus in there if they had to.

"Any idea what floor he's on?" Jack asked, already knowing the answer.

"Nah, but . . . his doc was complaining about her heels, and she was gonna check on him as soon as she kicked me out. I don't think she woulda wandered all over the hospital in those shoes. I think he's on the first floor, in the back, near her office."

The back certainly afforded any security additional time to stop anyone trying to leave out the front door. What little satellite footage he'd been able to get had been heavily covered by trees, but there had to be at least two other ground exits through that wall, and a subterranean one as well. You didn't build a place like this unless you expected a small army to lay siege to it.

This couldn't just be a place for damaged spooks. Something else was being kept here, something super high value. Maybe they really did treat visiting dignitaries here.

Jack kept to the 14 mph speed limit, heading for the clearly labeled visitor parking, which was conveniently just beside the main lobby, and on the other side of the facility from where ambulances bought in fresh meat. He'd have to walk the grounds to figure out what kinda hardware they had in those little gardens, but the vacant-eyed men and women in hospital scrubs scattered throughout the brightly colored space were a little off-putting.

Mostly because more than a few of them were so damn young. Maybe younger even than Mac.

Jack would bet his life that at least one of those patients wasn't a patient at all. And hell, if the patients were all ex-agents, no telling how they'd react to danger. Probably just as likely to attack any rescuers as the guards.

Or lick the walls. It was kinda a crapshoot.

Jack pulled into a comfortably wide parking space, adjusting the sun visor to hide his lips. "Alright, Boze. You got the cameras on the right, I'm on the left."

"You got it," the other agent confirmed, and then the two men exited the vehicle and headed in.

Jack let Bozer take the lead, since he'd been in the place once before, but the layout of the lobby was pretty much exactly what Wilt had drawn up in his lab, and he'd been spot on. The reception desk was just outside of line of sight with the drive, so no clear shot with an RPG. It was also concrete with an oak veneer. The cubist furniture was clearly reinforced and strategically placed. The dome cameras had good coverage, and there were others, including infrared, hidden behind some decorative wood paneling on the walls.

Bozer had plastered on his most polite smile, and approached an equally friendly-looking receptionist. "Good morning, my name is Wilt Bozer and this is Jack Dalton. We have an appointment with Dr. Parsons."

Jack gave the woman a friendly smile as he heard his name, but his attention was on the equipment behind her. No point in having a fortified guard station if it didn't have any weapons. If smuggling weapons in proved to be a challenge, using what was already there was the next best thing.

Not that he was carrying at the moment. The first meeting, he'd promised Matty they'd play nice. He was to be on his best behavior. And considering how hard Matty had come down on Bozer, he was going to do his damnedest to toe that line.

As long as he got to see Mac with his own eyes, he'd consider it a win.

Also, technically he was still suspended, so if he was caught carrying concealed in a federal facility he'd be charged and go serve that prison sentence Bozer had weaseled out of.

"Of course. Gentlemen, if you'll please place these badges facing forward, clipped above your waist?" Two smurf-blue badges were offered across the counter, bearing their official agency headshots and names, and Jack stepped forward and accepted his, grinning down at the face grinning back at him.

"Lookit that handsome devil," he murmured, sending the receptionist a wink, and Bozer shook his head in a long-suffering sort of way.

"Just ignore him. He's, uh, he's a li'l special."

Dalton gave him a mildly offended look, which did seem to honestly amuse the receptionist, and she gestured towards a nondescript but _very_ well-reinforced side door, where a thin woman had magically appeared. Based on her skin tone and body language, she was ex-Moussad.

Awesome. So it wasn't just US spooks they locked up here.

The hallway they were led down was remarkable only in that none of the offices were labeled, and all the doors were frosted safety glass. Not like the stuff they had in the War Room, but legit, run of the mill frosted safety glass. It allowed those in the offices to see silhouettes moving around outside, but he doubted they were bullet resistant and honestly the whole vibe felt a little more spa-like. There weren't even kick plates on the doors, and not an electronic or magnetic lock to be seen.

They were ushered into an office that was everything Bozer had described. Clearly decorated by a starving art student. None of the furniture or rugs matched, none of the colors matched, and there were far more toys and puzzles than books with words. Only the austere desk interrupted what Jack would have otherwise termed 'day care,' and he helped himself to a hacky sack while Bozer circled around to the empty laptop dock.

Jack gave the hacky sack a couple experimental bounces on his knee, then sent it sailing towards Bozer, who looked up from his examination of the dock with a sour expression. The knit footbag bounced off his chest and landed with a papery crackle on the hopelessly messy desk.

"Really, Jack? Really?" Boze set the dock back down, clearly disappointed. "No USB ports, keyboard and mouse must be Bluetooth. So much for givin' Riley a back door."

Not that it mattered; he hadn't bothered to bring one of her dohickeys. It woulda been detected the second they plugged it in, anyway. "It won't be that easy, Boze. Today's all about recon." He gestured at the ball. "And I'll tell you what, I played a lot more hacky sack with grown men than I ever did in grade school." A second glance around the room confirmed that there was nothing glass, nothing sharp, nothing small enough to swallow. Even the coffee table was rough-hewn wood, no real edges and way too heavy to lift. And the chairs in front of the desk were lightweight aluminum and mesh. Almost toys themselves.

The only questionable thing was the mirror mobile, hanging from the ceiling, but he figured the fishing line used to put it together was way too fragile to do anything useful with, and the mirrors were probably plastic.

Bozer had been right on a lot of counts. But this was no pediatrician's office.

"Yeah, well, I guess beggars can't be choosers in a desert."

Jack shook his head and caught the hacky sack when Bozer tossed it back to him. "Most the guys I served with weren't tossin' around the ol' pigskin because they were bored." He used his knee to pop the grain-filled sack almost up to the ceiling, and caught it deftly behind his back. "It helped 'em cope."

It took a second for the light to come on, but Wilt eventually put it together, and his brow knit. ". . . you mean, like, with PTSD?"

The toys were bona fide toys. Something to mess with so your hands were busy while your mind took you places you'd rather not go. The colors, the different textures, all of it. That's why the office looked the way it looked. Patients were actually treated in here.

Mac might be treated in here, once he was up and around.

"Yeah. And some of its ugly cousins." This Simone Parsons was more than a neurologist. She was also a shrink.

"Some of the prettier ones, too," a voice observed blandly, from behind him, and Jack turned in time to see Mac's doc finish letting herself in. Dr. Parsons looked about the same as she did on the video feed, in a physician's white coat and business formal beneath. She acknowledged Jack with a nod, but her eyes were on Bozer. "Mr. Power of Attorney."

Bozer had the decency to look slightly chagrined at being caught on the wrong side of her desk. "Dr. - Simone," he greeted, and stepped around the piece of furniture like he'd just been wandering around the room. "How is he?"

"Your snooping didn't tell you?" She softened the sharp words with a teasing smile, and gestured to the aluminum chairs in front of the desk. "You know I don't leave patient records lying around."

"Naw, you file those in your recycle bin," Wilt agreed, then toed it as he came around. "But someone emptied it recently, so."

Jack was a little surprised that Wilt was being so openly challenging, but it didn't seem to faze the woman at all. She took her seat behind the desk, and Jack plopped down in the third chair, shifting his sling out of the way.

Her eyes were a unique combination of green and gold, and Jack could feel them measuring him. "Well, my wing's currently full. No new patients, no new garbage. You must be the partner."

Jack gave her a broad, empty smile. "Guilty."

She returned the smile with one of her own. "How's that clavicle healing up?"

"Just fine," he assured her. She could probably tell where the pain was by the way he was sitting. "And speakin' of people healing up, how's our boy doing?"

The smile became a little less sarcastic, and a little more business-like. "Gentlemen, I'll be brief. Your bestie is recovering from a seizure he experienced earlier this morning. It fell basically in line with the others, and makes five since he was admitted. It's possible that he's developed an atypical form of epilepsy, but –"

"Is he okay?"

She didn't appear upset at the interruption. "No, he's not okay," she told Bozer matter-of-factly. "He's in a hospital, on a ventilator, recovering from life-threatening injuries. If you're asking whether the seizure has complicated his recovery, the answer is no. They're tonic seizures, and we're able to see them coming and prepare."

Jack kept his tone nice and level. "Can we all drop the attitude, and you just tell us how he is?"

She shifted the chair so that she was facing Jack squarely. "I don't know how he is," and she gave him a warning look when he opened his mouth to call her on yet more evasion. "I told your people four days ago, preliminary results are not in yet. I can tell you it's possible that he's developed epilepsy, but it's possible that the seizures are simply a side effect of his brain healing and adjusting to the new neural pathways his brain stem spontaneously built. It's possible that he will have seizures every day for the rest of his life, or never have another one ever again. Only time will tell us, and he hasn't experienced enough of it yet."

Beside him, Wilt shifted restlessly in his seat. "Then – how is he otherwise? Is he – is he communicating with you? Does he understand what's happening to him?"

She took a moment to gather her thoughts. "He is communicating with us, and I don't know if he understands what's happening to him."

Bozer let out a small noise of frustration. "Well, what _do_ you know? He's been here almost two weeks, you must know _something_ -"

"I know his vision is 20/20, or close to it. He can discern differences in the normal color spectrum, so no color blindness. His hearing is equal to or better than most males his age. He's capable of very basic computation and counting, he's capable of recognizing shapes and patterns, and he notices when patterns are broken. He's very partial to weather and nature, both images and sounds, but his current favorite is watching mechanical systems – video of a sewing machine in slow motion, water or marbles running through a Rube Goldberg machine, industrial assembly lines, that kind of thing."

That sounded just like Mac.

"He prefers classical and world music to pop, country, rock, rap, or dance. He's not terribly interested in people watching or sports but the idea of crowds, at least on a screen, don't seem to upset him. He's extremely resistant to sleeping, which isn't all that surprising given his condition and occupation, but he's too weak to remain conscious for more than an hour and forty-five minutes at a stretch. His active engagement with his environment is limited to two twenty minute periods within that window."

That sounded . . . less like Mac. "Doc, I don't know how you're testin' him, but you need to tweak the settings a little. Mac's a classic rock kinda guy."

Dr. Parsons folded her hands on the small sliver of her desk that wasn't completely covered in papers. "We tweak the settings daily as he becomes more cogent. You asked me to tell you what I know, and I can only tell you what he's told me."

"And . . . how does he tell you?" Bozer hesitated. "Is it the blinking . . .?"

If she was surprised they knew, she didn't show it. "In part. We use a combination of technology to measure his response to stimuli, that includes pupil dilation and eye movement, temperature changes on the surface of his skin, blood pressure, heart rate, brain wave patterns, respiratory patterns, blood gases, and hormones. He's on a general trend of becoming more and more unhappy as he gains awareness of the passage of time and his physical condition, and we're correcting for that mood shift in our observations."

"And that's all you're doing? Showin' him How It's Made videos and playin' Mozart?" Jack scoffed. "Doc, you're not gonna keep his attention that way. Did it occur to you he's chekin' out because he's bored?" He had to be almost out of his mind by now, unable to move or fidget, watching freakin' Reading Rainbow like a toddler –

"No, it never crossed my mind," she replied, with a sarcastic innocence. "I have many guesses as to why he's behaving as he is, and what he might be thinking about. However, boredom is unlikely, and I'll tell you why. When he arrived, he had poison sludge for blood. The toxins still left in his brain and other tissues from the sepsis alone would be enough to impair him. Coupled with the pain management and the total lack of physical activity, best case scenario is that he feels like he's on multiple full strength, full drowsy decongestants and dramamine, and he washed it all down with a liter of champagne. I shouldn't have to tell someone like you that best case scenario is unlikely."

Dalton very carefully didn't bare his teeth. "Someone like me?"

Her eyebrows twitched. "You are aware every time you subdue a target by restricting the blood flow along their carotid that the mechanism that leads to their unconsciousness is a lack of oxygen to the brain. How long does it typically take you to render a subject unconscious? Seconds?" She leaned back in her chair. "What happened to him was the equivalent of being in an improperly applied hold like that for _minutes_."

Which couldn't be true. Couldn't. "Then he'd be dead," Jack told her softly, no trace of humor in his voice. "An' it's pretty clear he's alive and kickin'."

The woman watched him a moment, then slightly inclined her head. "I'll grant you that he's in better shape than he has any right to be, and that he's improving daily. I'd like for him to maintain that trend, which is why you're here." She focused back on Bozer. "You'll have five minutes with him, no more. He can't handle the stimulation, not after recently seizing," she continued, right over Bozer's attempt to protest. "You may not, under any circumstances, address him by his given name. Nicknames are fine – except Mac. He hasn't indicated yet that he knows who he is, and I don't want to give him any clues that will affect memory testing." She met both their eyes in turn. "You cannot discuss the job, the circumstances under which he was injured, you can't tell him about his condition outside of the most broad terms –"

"Wait," Bozer waved her silent. "You haven't told him – what happened to him?"

"He knows about his physical condition, the chest wound and the shock, and we update him daily. But the potential cognitive issues? Absolutely not. It would negatively impact testing. I need him to tell me what he's actually experiencing, not what he wants to hide or how he _thinks_ he should be."

She leaned forward on the desk, her expression hardening. "This is non-negotiable. If you give him _any_ indication, I'll have you immediately removed from the room and that will be your last visit. Let me be clear, you're not here to make yourselves feel better. You're here to reassure _him_. He doesn't need your guilt, he doesn't need your self-recrimination, he doesn't need your apologies. He has enough of his own burdens to carry without shouldering yours. Your job is to set him at ease, assure him that he's safe, and encourage him to participate in his recovery."

Suddenly the about-face on the updates and the visitation policy started to make sense. This wasn't a favor; she wanted to use them to get Mac to cooperate with her. "He doesn't trust you as far as he can throw you, does he, doc," Jack drawled. "Don't that tell you somethin'?"

If Mac knew enough to not trust her, then he had to still be in there somewhere. Had to know who he was. What he did for a living. He had to remember something, had to have a reason not to trust her.

"It tells me that he's afraid," she replied. "He's in pain, he can't move, and he feels vulnerable and exposed. I know you'd like to make the leap that he realizes he's a covert agent who was injured during a classified operation, but the fact is, a four year old would be displaying the exact same behavior. He knows that I'm not familiar to him, but there's no further conclusion that can be drawn from his reaction. You _want_ it to mean something. That doesn't mean it does."

"And you want us to convince him to trust you?" Jack scoffed. "I don't think _I_ trust you."

"It's not about you," she told him flatly. "It's about him, and _his_ well-being. If you want him to recover to his best possible self, he needs to be working with us."

Much as he might not like her tone, her behavior, her insistence that Mac was damaged goods - she had a point. Mac was here to stay, at least in the short term. If he was fighting, or holding out on the docs – which would totally be SOP in this situation – then that could legitimately become a problem. If he thought she was one of Aydin's, or even that he was still in Amsterdam, with the Dutch, being held or in custody because of what he'd done –

Then he'd do everything he could to escape this place. Well before he was healed up enough to actually make it.

Jack glanced at Bozer, seeing all the same thoughts scurrying across his face. Whether they trusted her or not, the fact was that Mac was back in the United States, and, barring Oversight throwing him to the wolves, he was safe. It wasn't like they were nursing him back to health just to drug and torture him.

Probably.

And at the very least, seeing them alive and well should tell Mac that he was okay. That he was gonna be okay, that they were watching over him and they had his back.

And that, _that_ was worth it.

"We can try," Jack finally allowed. "But it's gonna be a hard sell, with just five minutes apiece-"

She shook her head. "Five minutes total. You can split it up however you want, but he can't handle more than that right now."

Bozer frowned at her. "And you expect us to do that without being able to call him Mac, tell him where he is or how he is, talk about what happened – what the hell do you expect us to say? Nice weather we're having in this undisclosed location? We have to leave in five minutes because that's all the guards gave us?"

She gave Wilt a considering look, then pushed herself away from the desk and stood. "Well, you've got around twenty minutes to think of something, because that's about how long it'll be before he falls asleep."

Jack exchanged a look with Bozer, then the two got to their feet as well and followed her out of the office. The doctor led them silently down the hall, in the opposite direction from the lobby, and waved her badge in front of what looked like a regular badge reader. Jack didn't miss the fact that while she grabbed her badge – and hers was white, not smurf-colored – she didn't press the plastic to the grey box. Boze had said he thought the guards and staff might have microchips embedded in the backs of their hands, and Jack was starting to think he was right.

The magnetic lock popped, and they were led out into a brightly lit hallway, the same of all hospitals the world over. It was easily wide enough to accommodate two gurneys plus people passing one another. There were thick white rails waist-high and ankle-high, to prevent renegade equipment from bashing into the walls. Medical staff in tailored, colorful scrubs were bustling around doing their jobs, and no one raised a single eyebrow at the two agents, in business casual clothes, trailing after the doctor.

Jack counted four dome cameras, some kind of quick-deploying fire barrier, and sprinkler heads that did _not_ look like they emitted water before she pressed on a lever-style door handle and led them into what looked a lot like a conference room. It wasn't fancy by any stretch, the table was dinged and had permanent coffee rings marring the finish, but there was a ginormous television inset in the far wall, and Dr. Parsons grabbed a tablet that was sitting idle on the long, oblong table, and started fooling with it.

"Have a seat," she said unnecessarily.

They did.

Shortly the television came to life, cycling through screens faster than Jack could make sense of them, and he hoped they weren't going by so fast that the tiny button camera currently pretending to be the rivet on his sling wouldn't be able to focus on them. Eventually the mayhem settled into a kind of marketing-esque screen, with squiggly lines on the right-hand side, and various technical names on the left. It might as well have been Greek.

A very sharp, close-up image of Mac's face appeared in a new window, at a different angle than their own camera feed, and Jack watched as something suspiciously like their Phoenix tech was superimposed, drawing a series of geometric lines over his eyes, concentrating on his pupils and the distance between his lower and upper eyelids. The lines moved with him as he looked to his left, apparently at someone or something approaching him.

"This is live," she told them, panning out slightly, and a pair of blue latex-gloved hands came into view, untangling one of the scalp-mounted lead wires from the gunk holding the one beside it in place. Behind that image, the marketing-esque screen was constantly updating.

"As soon as Nurse Wanda has him ready, she'll announce that you're here, and ask him if he wants to see you. That decision is entirely up to him."

"You're gonna tell him our names, but we can't use his?" That seemed a little ass backwards.

"That's right." There wasn't a hint of apology in her voice. "Based on prior observations, he's capable of recognizing different people and accessing his short term memory. I want to see what happens when he attempts to access long term memory. Nurse Wanda will remain in the room with you for the duration of your visit, and if she indicates that you need to leave, for any reason, you will do so _immediately_ or you will be forcibly removed."

"Yeah, so you said," Jack reminded her drily, and the doctor glanced up from her tablet. In this light, the freckles were more pronounced, and they only served to make her expression more severe.

"And I mean it when I say, don't make me push the red button. He's unlikely to respond well to a physical altercation in the room when he can't move or defend himself. Keep to the script, gentlemen."

"Yeah, and what _is_ the script?" Bozer muttered, almost to himself. He hadn't torn his eyes off the screen, where the ultra high definition image of Mac had lost interest in the nurse, and now seemed to be staring right at them. Jack could see the pores of his skin, count the individual hairs of his eyebrows.

Mac looked worn out and miserable. He didn't see a lot of fear in those eyes, just a lack of something that made his gut want to clench.

A lack of light. Mac looked like he had zero curiosity about anything happening around him, but he wasn't willing to close his eyes. Parsons was right – that wasn't boredom.

Jack wasn't quite sure what it was. He just knew that he didn't like. Didn't like it one bit.

"So we get five minutes. Is that together, or do we gotta go in separately?"

The doctor glanced between the two of them. "You can go in together if you behave yourselves. He's coped with dividing his attention before. It's the exposure period more than the stimulation itself we need to limit."

Bozer finally averted his eyes from the screen to look at the doc, and Jack decided not to ask the obvious question. Wilt was freaking out enough as it was.

"Well, we sure as hell can't go in there and lie to 'im," Jack said, keeping his voice deliberately light. "He'll pick up on it like that." He snapped with his slinged-up right hand, surprised to find the hacky sack was actually still in his left.

He hadn't even realized he was still holding it.

"So let's just tell it like it is. He's okay, we're okay, and he needs to quit screwin' around and heal up so he can come home."

Bozer offered him a feeble smile. "What was that you just said about not lyin' to him?"

"Hey man, you're not in prison, right?" Jack pointed out reasonably. "Nobody's underground. Mac's only a few weeks away from walkin' and talkin', and no matter how this shakes out, we got him."

And they did. He knew that the prattling about Matty's latest mind game and the security around the facility was just Bozer's way of avoiding the fact that in a few minutes, he was going to be in a room with his best friend. The best friend that he'd all but personally pulled the plug on. That was going to be a hell of a conversation, and it needed to be had, but right now Boze had to bottle it all up and pretend that it hadn't happened.

And he wasn't sure the kid could do it. So the reminder that he wasn't alone, that they had his back – that wasn't just for Mac. That was for Bozer too.

And no matter what Bozer was going through, Jack knew without a doubt he was gonna put Mac first. He'd proven it – twice. The first time when Murdoc so spectacularly blew Mac's cover, the second three weeks ago, when he signed that piece of paper.

"You and me, we got him, Boze, and that's god's honest truth."

Bozer nodded, then swallowed – hard. Then he started assembling his game face. It took him a few seconds, but it looked reasonably decent, and Jack gave him a nod. "Alright then."

Wilt inhaled deeply, then returned the nod. "Alright."

"Alright," Simone agreed, and tapped something on the tablet.

The view didn't change, though somehow a message must have been sent, and then the small 'mute' symbol on the bottom of the screen disappeared, and they heard some rustling noises.

"Hey handsome, now that I gotcha all untangled, you feelin' up to seein' someone?" It was a woman's voice, sing-song and melodic. Clearly the nurse. Mac responded by thinking about that for a second, then looking to his left, where the blue-gloved hands had been.

"There's two visitors out in the lobby who'd like to see you, if you're up for it," she continued, her voice deeply soothing. "But they can come back another day if you want."

He blinked slowly, then focused more of his attention on her.

"The tall one's named Jack Dalton, and then there was a shorter, younger man named Wilt Bozer. They can't stay long, but they asked if they could see you. Do you want me to show them in?"

"I'm not _that_ much shorter," Bozer muttered under his breath.

Mac's eyes sharpened slightly, and he stared off to his left without blinking.

The nurse gave him a few seconds. "Do you want me to tell them to go?"

And damned if Mac didn't give her a deliberate blink.

It hit Jack like a sucker punch to the gut. He . . . he didn't want to see them? He didn't recognize their names?

"We're using the one blink for no, two for yes pattern with Mr. MacGyver," Simone announced casually to the room at large. "We word the questions so that a yes takes intentional effort, just in case we misinterpret a blink."

So that single blink - that was a no. No he didn't want them to go.

Jack released a breath he didn't know he was holding, and he loosened his bone-crushing grip on the hacky sack. He recognized their names, and he didn't want them to go.

"Do you want to think about it for a minute?"

Mac blinked, and almost looked like he was going to blink again, but didn't. His eyes just hooded a little, like he was giving it serious consideration.

"You don't have to see them if you don't want to," she told him kindly. "It's totally up to you, handsome."

He didn't really respond to that, and Bozer turned to look at the doctor in confusion. "So . . . what does _that_ mean?"

Dr. Parsons toggled the tablet back to the squiggles and Greek, her own eyes narrowing slightly as she focused.

". . . his heart rate has ticked up a fraction, but he's keeping his respiration steady." There was a slight note of curiosity in her voice, and she toggled back to the ultra high definition image of Mac's face, still apparently thinking things over.

Then he seemed to take a deeper breath on the ventilator than before, and he let it out in a whoosh. Jack had been on a ventilator before, more times than he cared to remember, and unfortunately been pretty with it at least one of those times. He remembered how much he fucking hated them, hated how different it was to breathe. How sometimes he felt breathless, or sometimes stale air seemed to collect in his lungs. He wondered if that was what his partner was feeling right now.

Mac blinked twice, in rapid succession.

"Yes, you want to see them?"

Another two blinks. Jack unconsciously mimicked him.

"Okay, handsome. I'll tell you what, I'm gonna go get them, and then I'll come back in here and ask you one more time. They can't stay long, and I'll be right here with you if you want. Does that sound good?"

Another two blinks, very deliberate, and then Mac's expression seemed to harden, just slightly. Just like it did right before they'd get out of the car and walk into a hotel, or a casino, or some other location to start the op.

Preparing himself.

Bozer saw it too. "He doesn't look too happy at the prospect of seein' us."

Understatement of the year. "He thinks she's tryin' to pull a fast one on him," Jack confirmed. "Guess we'll just have to show him we're the real McCoy. You ready, chief?"

Bozer looked at the screen, steeling himself, then got determinedly to his feet. "Hell yes I am. Been waitin' _weeks_ for this visit."

Dr. Parsons studied them in turn, then gestured towards the door. Apparently she intended to remain in Ops and watch the fallout from a safe distance. Jack went ahead and got the door, and he wasn't surprised in the least to see the white-haired nurse no more than five doors away, looking expectantly in their direction.

"Nurse Wanda will give you instructions, and remain in the room to care for the patient. When she tells you your five minutes are up, don't argue."

". . . you've clearly never met Jack," Bozer muttered under his breath, and Dalton gave him a broad grin as he let the door close behind them.

The security on the rest of the doors in the hallway was significantly different than the conference room. There were at least ten doors, all of which contained badge readers and, if Jack wasn't mistaken, anti-forced-entry technology in the form of an unassuming beige box that would administer a hell of a shock if someone without the appropriate clearance attempted to open the door.

Mac would have it circumvented in less than thirty seconds.

Nurse Wanda wasn't exactly a statuesque African goddess like the X-Men they'd nicknamed her after, but she handled herself like she knew what she was doing, and her smile seemed genuine enough. "Gentlemen," she greeted warmly, and held out her fist for a bump.

The no shaking hands thing was weird, but since he still had the stupid hacky sack in his hand, Jack really didn't mind.

"There's just a few things you need to know. Angus is still pretty weak. He won't move around too much, and it hurts his throat to rotate his neck, so if you can, stay down around his hips or lower. That way he can keep an eye on both of you at the same time. You can only touch him if _he_ initiates contact. No hugs, nothin' that would make him feel like he was gettin' smothered or attacked." This seemed to be directed specifically at Bozer, who held up his hands placatingly.

Somewhat mollified, she continued. "Right now we're using a one blink for no, two blinks for yes communication pattern for him, so if you ask him somethin', try to make it a yes or no question. If he gets upset, you're gonna have to leave. Move slow, and give him plenty of time to get used to you before you get too close. We good on the rules?"

"Yes ma'am," Jack said, without a trace of sarcasm. He wasn't crazy about the doc, not even a little, but he'd seen the way the nurse handled Mac, and he approved. She was always gentle, and he never looked like he was afraid or wary of her.

Bozer nodded silently.

Wanda gave them both that same smile – with just a hint of momma bear in it, that made Jack think she might actually be part Texan – and waved her badge at the door. It beeped, and then she led the way into the room.

It was easily twice the size of any normal treatment room, Jack could tell despite the long hanging curtains hiding both the patient and the rest of it from view. All different kinds of equipment lined the walls out of Mac's sight, and despite the fact that Jack knew damn well they were in a fully interior room, there was an unmistakable afternoon glow coming from what looked like perfectly real floor to ceiling windows.

In fact, the view was basically the front courtyard of the St. Mary-Dismas Medical Center. A few key details were off, otherwise Jack would have sworn he was looking at a live video feed. The light even felt warm, like it was real sunlight.

Wanda held up her hand, stopping them just inside the door, then she rounded the curtain. "Hey, handsome. You still feel up to seein' visitors?"

There was a brief pause, punctuated by the quiet hiss of a ventilator. Wanda smiled.

"Alright. I'll show them in."

She beckoned – quite obviously, and clearly for Mac's benefit just as much as theirs – and Jack physically held himself back from bounding around the curtains like a freakin' kid. Instead, he took slow, measured strides, letting Bozer take the lead, and Wanda's position by the curtain forced them to loop around behind her, further increasing the physical space between them and the hospital bed.

It didn't matter. Mac was watching for them, knew exactly where they'd be.

For a long moment, he looked like he had on the monitors. Neutral. Blank expression. He didn't move, didn't blink, just stared at them. His next breath on the ventilator was steady.

There was no hint of recognition.

Jack grinned, then elbowed Bozer, who seemed to have stopped breathing altogether. "There's our boy. Open eyes an' everything. What'd I tell you, Boze?"

Wilt very nearly stumbled a step, but it did snap him out of it, and he shook his head in mock disappointment. "That it's about damn time," he replied, then approached the bed. "It's good to see you awake, man."

Mac's eyes flicked to his left, the side of the bed Bozer was approaching, but he didn't seem alarmed. Nothing started squawking. He simply watched Bozer walk up, the same way he'd watched the nurse not five minutes ago.

Disinterestedly.

Bozer paused at the foot of the bed, then made a show of giving the room a once-over. "I gotta say, this is definitely a step up from Observation One."

Observation One was one of the three rooms in the Phoenix Foundation's medical ward where any agent too injured to go home would spend the night. It was the very room Mac had escaped from, last year, and been sent right back to for four days of detox and recovery.

It was very clearly a reference to the job. One of the topics they were forbidden from discussing.

So Boze was all in. Proving themselves to Mac was more important to him than risking getting kicked out.

Jack gusted out a sigh and also approached, stopping at the foot of the bed as well. "Easy, Boze. He still don't look too sure that we ain't Memorex."

Mac's eyes shifted between them, and he gave them a slow blink. Above his head, his heart rate ticked up a couple beats a minute.

Jack smirked.

"Well, bud, guess you've figured out by now that you ain't home. Matty pulled some strings _way_ above our pay grade. This place is the real deal." Jack gestured carelessly at the room at large. "All I can tell ya is, try not to ask too many questions, an' if you go snooping, don't get caught. Hell, we ain't even supposed to tell ya that you're in Colorado, let alone Grand Junction."

"Nope," Bozer agreed quietly. "Shouldn't talk about work, either, so we can't tell you that everybody's okay. Riley wanted to come, but Matty's got her workin' on something else, so you're stuck with us." Then Wilt paused. "Well, we're _mostly_ okay," he amended, then thumbed over at Jack.

Jack's smirk grew. "It looks worse than it is, bud. We're good. We're all good, man. Every one of us."

Mac seemed to suppress a blink, then looked to his right. Where Nurse Wanda was still standing, a little smile playing on her lips.

"I'll be right over here if you need me, handsome," she murmured, her tone almost teasing, before she withdrew to the other side of the curtain. She didn't even try to fake leaving the room, and she gave them no indication that she wanted them to follow. Jack leaned over the foot of the bed conspiratorially.

"That doc of yours is _definitely_ an acquired taste, but I kinda like your nurse."

Mac's heart rate continued to climb, little by little, and he took a deeper breath off the ventilator.

"Anyway, we were in the neighborhood, wanted to stop by and see if you were up." Jack glanced up at the ceiling, ostensibly to look at the television built into it and angled perfectly for a reclining patient to watch, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't locate a single camera. There was no sign of any surveillance tech in the room at all, it was camouflaged perfectly in the stylized, atypical acoustic tiles.

Mac had no idea they were watching. They'd been watching, the whole time.

The television was displaying a view of some mountain chain in the fall in ridiculous detail, and at every gust of wind, leaves exploded from the trees in colorful swarms. It was actually pretty relaxing to watch. "Heard they were tryin' to bore you to death. Anything we can getcha?"

But Mac was watching Bozer, not him, and then he blinked.

And then he blinked again, and haltingly turned his left hand over, palm up, on the mattress. He even managed to half-straighten his curled fingers.

Bozer didn't need any further invitation. He came over and clasped Mac's hand at once, sinking onto the side of the mattress as he did so. He didn't say anything at all, he couldn't, but he put his other hand over Mac's and pulled them to his chest.

Mac's eyes seemed to brighten, a little, and then they cut back to Jack. Dalton gave his partner a much more somber smile.

"Yeah, bud. It was bad. Real bad," he admitted softly. "It's a miracle I got any hair left at all, grey or otherwise. But the docs pulled you through it. I know sittin' still is about your least favorite thing, but trust me, dude, you are right where you need to be. Everybody's safe, it's all tied up with a bow, and all you gotta do for the next little while is heal. That's your job. You hearin' me?"

Mac stared at him, his eyes growing brighter still, and then he clumsily turned over his right hand.

His hand was his hand again. Weak, which was unusual because Mac had a damn strong grip, but nothing like the cadaver-hand. Jack sat to Mac's right, on his hip to accommodate the sling, and clasped his hand in Mac's preferred climber's hold.

And there was just no way in hell he was going to let go of it. Not ever again.

But Parsons was right. Mac didn't need their guilt any more than he needed his own. He was all but crying already, and his next breath stuttered.

"Easy, bud," Jack admonished gently. "No need to get all worked up. You know damn well I ain't gonna take my eyes off you. We know right where you are, and when you're ready to blow this popsicle stand, we'll come and getcha." He sniffed very matter-of-factly. "I mean, I know the cable kinda sucks –"

There was a curious little catch on the ventilator, almost a cough, and Jack tried hard not to wince. Mac closed his eyes for a second, and Jack was honestly surprised the tears in there stayed put.

"Sorry, man, I know laughing on a vent ain't fun. Just . . . just promise me this. Two blinks, okay? You promise me that you're gonna stop messin' around, and start workin' with these fine ladies."

Mac opened his eyes again, and checked in with Bozer. Wilt nodded, and swallowed loudly enough that even Jack heard him.

"Everything's on the up and up, dude. I know you're tired and you wanna come home. But you can't, not 'til you're up and around. So just get some rest, heal up, and let 'em do their thing."

Mac watched him, almost calculatingly, then seemed to use the ventilator to sigh. Of course he believed Bozer was Bozer. Wilt was a terrible liar. And no one who was pretending to be Bozer, particularly one of Aydin's guys, would be able to fake that particular big-hearted cuddle bug vibe. Not to Mac.

He knew damn well who Bozer was. Maybe he didn't remember the op, maybe he didn't remember everything, but he sure as hell recognized his best friend.

Mac was definitely in there.

His partner looked back at him, searching his face, and Jack gave him a rare serious look, and slapped his left hand – and the hacky sack – over the back of Mac's right.

"Promise me, man."

Mac stared at him a long second, then he gave two deliberate blinks, back to back.

Yes.

Jack nodded his approval. "Good. Imma hold you to that, you read me, kiddo?"

Two more blinks.

Behind them came the soft sound of sneakers on tile. "Mr. Dalton, Mr. Bozer, your car has arrived."

Meaning their five minutes were up.

Jack very carefully didn't roll his eyes, or try to play it off. He simply gusted out a sigh. "Apparently it's nap time," he informed his partner drily. "And frankly, bud, you look like you can use it. Get some rest. I got watch."

Bozer sighed a little, then squeezed his roomie's hand and regretfully set it down on Mac's stomach. Mac stared at him a moment, then his eyes crawled back to Jack, and Dalton gave him a nod.

"Gotta jet, dude. We'll be seein' you soon. Count on it."

He gave Mac's hand a firm squeeze, then released it and moved to get to his feet. Mac wasn't having any of it. He hung on, doggedly, barely able to support the weight of his own arm, but he tried. Jack's right arm was in a sling, he wasn't able to detach himself as easily as Bozer had, and he was left half-standing next to his suddenly desperate-looking partner.

Mac's next breath on the ventilator was quick and short, nearly a gasp. Jack wasn't sure if it was pain or an attempt to talk, and he immediately froze.

"Hey," he murmured quietly, as Mac sucked down another quick breath. "It's okay, dude. I _swear_ to you that you're safe, and if that changes, I will be here. I will be right here beside you. I ain't takin' my eyes off you, haven't since it happened. But right now you gotta rest, and I gotta follow the rules. This ain't goodbye, brother. Not by a longshot."

Mac's grip didn't slacken at all, and he stared at him intently, unblinking. The same look they'd exchanged a hundred times, over a bomb, in front of a gun, across the table when their cover was blown. Willing him to understand, without words, what he was trying to say.

Jack stared back at him, and Mac actually managed to tighten his grip, just slightly.

 _I'm not gonna let go, man. I gotcha. All you gotta do is grab on._

Jack blinked at him, then fought a lump rising in his throat. ". . . could you . . . _hear_ us . . .?"

Mac stared at him, his eyes brightening again, and he gave him two deliberate blinks.

Yes.

Jack gripped Mac's hand – hard. "Trust me, man, I ain't lettin' you go. Not by a mile." He brought up his left hand again, gently breaking the climber's grip Mac was still trying so hard to maintain. But he didn't let Mac's hand drop. He held him tight.

"I made you a promise, hoss. Remember? When you get laid up, I don't leave ya in the dark, and I always have a toy or somethin' to keep you occupied." He pressed the hacky sack into Mac's hand, closing his fingers around it, and then set Mac's fist back on the mattress, in the folds of the blanket, where the cameras couldn't see.

And it was enough. Mac didn't reach out for him again, but he did curl his right hand closer to his leg. His eyes never left Jack's face, but they lost the slightly desperate look.

Like he'd managed to pass along what he needed to say.

Jack straightened and shot his partner a last grin – as playful as he could make it – then turned and found Wanda and Bozer standing right at the edge of the curtain. The nurse sidestepped them to give her patient a bright smile.

"I'm just going to escort your friends back to the lobby, and then I'll be back in here to check up on you, okay, handsome?"

Jack didn't look to see how Mac responded – he knew if the desperate look was back he was gonna stay and that physical altercation Parsons had warned him about would become a reality – and instead he sighed, silently, and headed straight for the door. He heard Bozer's low voice rumble, say something to Mac, and then he was out in the hall.

So was Dr. Parsons. She hooked a finger at him in a come hither motion, and disappeared back into the conference room.

Bozer was right behind him, and caught the tail end of her disappearing. He opened his mouth to say something, but Nurse Wanda shook her head sharply, then made sure Mac's door was firmly closed.

Only then did Jack realize that he hadn't heard a damn thing from the hallway, the entire time they were in there. The bustle, the people talking, equipment being rolled by – it had been like a little island of solitude.

The rooms were soundproofed.

"Simone would like a word," Wanda told them, with the tone of a mildly disappointed librarian, and Jack blew out his cheeks, and glanced at Wilt, holding out his now-empty left fist.

"Worth it."

"Totally worth it," Bozer agreed, bringing his fist down on Jack's offered one, and the nurse clucked her tongue at them to get them moving. The conference room was unchanged, still with Mac in ultra high definition on the big screen, with data compiling behind him. Parsons didn't even turn around.

"For a career soldier, you don't follow orders very well," the doctor observed acerbically.

 _Bite my ass, lady_. "You wanted him to trust you, that's the best we could do," Jack replied shortly. "And lemme me save you some time there, doc. He's in there. Mac's in there."

He remembered. He remembered what they'd said to him while he was in the coma. He'd heard them.

He'd heard _him_. Begging him not to let go.

"Really." Her tone hadn't significantly changed, and she made a broad swipe on the tablet. The footage of Mac rewound rapidly, then paused, with him wearing the same expression he'd had on when they walked into the room.

"Tell me what you see," she prompted, and let the footage play.

Bozer could only handle the silence for a few seconds. "He recognized us," he said, almost defensively, and gestured when Mac offered his left hand. "Look at him, see that?"

"Yes," the doctor agreed. "He recognized you."

"He was testin' us, he knew he oughta be suspicious because of what happened last time. He was tryin' to make sure we were real."

"Huh," she murmured. "You think so?" Then she started an incremental fast forward.

Jack resisted the urge to grind his teeth. "He knew it was us. He remembered stuff I'd said to him." The desperate look crept into his eyes then, and Jack could barely stand to watch. "If you wanted him calm, you shoulda let us stay til he fell asleep, or at least til he was ready for us to go. He knows damn well that somethin's up, neither of us would ever leave him alone like that unless someone made us."

"Perhaps," she allowed, and this time the sarcasm was gone. "I do agree that he recognized you, and he didn't want you to go." She paused the footage, with Mac staring intently at someone off camera.

Him. Mac was staring at him.

"Let me tell you what _I_ see, gentlemen. I see someone who knows that you're familiar. I also see someone who's hesitant to reach out – until he sees how upset you are." She rewound the footage back to the moment that Mac offered Bozer his hand. This time the footage zoomed out, showing the backs of their heads – and then two more views appeared below, and Jack was shocked to see his own face, his and Bozer's both. The size was smaller, but the detail was the same, with the same geometric lines overlaid on their mouths and eyes.

"It's only after he sees the look on your face, Wilt, that he reaches out his hand. And he reaches out for you first, and only you. Why not both of you?"

She cocked her head to the side, not taking her eyes off the screen. "He only does the same for you, Dalton, when he sees that you're upset too. Now, if he was testing you, and you'd passed, don't you think he'd . . . oh, I dunno . . . relax? Feel relief?"

It was clearly rhetorical, and she deftly pulled up something that was obviously a heartbeat pattern. The other was a squiggle of multiple lines. Both seemed pretty busy. Then a lighter, blue set of the same kind of data was overlaid. That data was much less busy. Much lower on the scale.

Much calmer.

"The red is data from a few minutes ago. The blue is his baseline. That lower graph? That's what it looks like when Angus is relaxed."

Parsons finally turned from the screen to look at them. "There's no relief there. He didn't relax. He's _still_ not relaxed. His anxiety started growing the moment he saw you, and it hasn't stopped yet." She indicated the timestamp – it was current state. A click back to Mac in real time found him lying in the bed with his eyes closed, his face carefully neutral. But his heart rate hadn't come down, and his right hand was still fisted in the blankets.

He was definitely not asleep.

Jack snorted. "Pretty sure he's figured out he's being watched –"

 _Since I damn well told him he was._

"He never felt relief, and never felt reassured," she cut him off. "If he actually _was_ testing you, he either didn't buy that you were real, or he didn't buy that you were telling the truth. Now, I agree that I see a man who didn't want you to go. Not because he knows he's a spy, not because he knows you're his partner, not because he really has any concept of you beyond knowing that you're something familiar in an unfamiliar place. I see a young man who's desperately trying to please you."

Jack hadn't seen it at the time, but Mac had clumsily pulled his left hand off his stomach, and laid it palm up on the bed again. Like he was asking Bozer to come back.

Bozer blinked, clearly also surprised. "I . . I didn't even see him do that –"

"No, you were too busy looking for what you wanted to see," she cut him off. "Let me ask you another way. If you woke up confused, disoriented, in pain, in a strange place you didn't want to be, and you thought that acting like you were fine would get you cut loose – what would you do? Or even better, you _knew_ there was something wrong with you, and you were scared shitless. You're telling me you'd be honest?"

Jack glared at her. No matter what they said, she'd just twist the words around. "You sure we're the only ones seein' what we wanna see, doc?" He stabbed two fingers at the screen. "Every last person that's treated him has done nothing but tell us that he's a lost cause. First he wasn't gonna survive the night. Then it was days. Then it was a week. We had to damn near kill him to prove to his last doc that he wasn't braindead. That kid knows damn well what's goin' on, and the sooner you see that, the sooner he gets better."

Parsons tossed the tablet onto the table, and spread her hands. "Then what's the worse case scenario here? If he's perfectly fine, neurologically speaking, and I keep treating him the way I'm treating him, what's the worst that can happen? When he can speak or write, he can tell me where to shove it, and as soon as he can walk, he's discharged." She offered them a shrug.

"Now, let's say _I'm_ right. He's people pleasing and guessing the right answers to escape a place he doesn't want to be, and he's got two enablers who want it to be true. What's the worst case there?"

But that wasn't it. Sure, Mac would fake being better than he was to get what he wanted, but he wasn't an idiot. If he knew that there was something wrong with him, _really_ wrong, the first thing he'd do is figure out how bad it was so he could figure out what to do about it. The doctors and the diagnostic equipment in a hospital were exactly what he'd go for.

If he could. If he could think that clearly.

Which only left one more question. "So when's that gonna happen, huh? When's that tube comin' out?"

The doctor gave him a long look. "It's not that simple. Under normal circumstances, you can't keep a patient intubated like this for more than about a week without risking permanent damage to their trachea and vocal chords. Our setup is special, we're doing far less damage, but the muscles of his tongue, throat and voice box will still be atrophied and weak. Barring any additional setbacks, the tube comes out in nine days, but he won't be able to even whisper for a week, and it'll be six months before his voice has recovered. And even after the shock dissipates, it'll be a month earliest before he's coordinated enough to write or type. Lip reading's weeks out."

Which meant he was trapped in this yes-no bullshit for weeks, if not a month. "Then you need to find a better way for him to communicate with us, and you need to do it right now." Jack didn't let her get a word in edgewise. "Because if _you're_ right, an' he figures out that he's not a hundred percent, that there might be something wrong with his brain? There ain't a single person on this planet could calm him down until you come clean to him and help him determine _exactly_ what's wrong and how bad it is."

Simone studied him a moment. "Let's step through that, shall we? Because I need you on the same page."

It took every last shred of his self-control to remain silent. The number of times he'd said that to Mac –

"Of course there are other communication methods we can use. Quite complex ones we use for patients who are permanently quadriplegic, that they control solely with their eyes. Your little project doesn't have that control. But hey, let's fast track him anyway, because you know best. So now he's using a communication method he can't control to start answering tough questions. Math. Logic problems. Complex language. He'll fail every one, because he essentially can't press the right button on the keyboard. If you think he's frustrated and scared now, _imagine_ how he would feel failing test after test."

She cocked her head, then came to stand toe to toe with him. "So, sergeant, do you want your specialist to be afraid that he _might_ be brain damaged, or absolutely certain of it?"

Jack couldn't help it. He laughed. It was honestly funny. "Oh, sweetheart, you have no damn idea who you've got lyin' in that bed, do you."

Strangely, she grinned at him. "Nope," she said, and then turned back to the conference table. "When Wanda's put Angus to bed she'll show you out."

Beyond her, Bozer was staring at them with wide eyes. "Uh . . . what happened to not reading people's files?"

Simone had reclaimed the tablet, and once again, screens started scrolling past at a breakneck pace. "I read _your_ files. Unless you hit your head recently, you know who you are."

Of course. She'd called him by his rank, which was classified, but didn't surprise Jack a bit. The second Matty had told them to get on the jet and go, he knew that a significant amount of negotiating had gone down to get them that access, and their Phoenix headshots on the pre-printed badges had clinched it. There was no way they hadn't both been exhaustively vetted before they'd been allowed on the property. Naturally Mac's doc would want to know exactly who she was letting into her patient's room.

That actually increased his respect for the broad. Slightly. So long as she used that level of care vetting _everyone_ she let near Mac, then they could at least be on the same page about that.

Jack watched Wilt's eyes narrow. "So you knew we'd tell him more than you wanted him to know."

Her fingers never slowed, dancing on the surface of the tablet. "I needed you to. The only topic off limits right now is any supposition about his cognitive state. I don't want him getting ideas about how he _thinks_ he ought to be. If I told you not to tell him that, you would have, so I gave you other restrictions."

Wilt's eyes narrowed further. "And you knew we'd disobey, so you'd have an excuse to block access to Mac."

Jack hadn't put it together that way, but the second Bozer had, it all clicked. Parsons heaved a sigh before he could say a word.

"I really ought to refer you to that audiologist. For the last time, gentlemen – this _isn't about you_. If Angus needs you both around to feel secure enough to relax, then you'll be here every day. If it takes me another four sessions to get him calmed down after this, you're not going to see him for weeks." Finally, she stopped manipulating the tablet, and met Bozer's accusatory glare. "Come on, Wilt. Work me with. You were doing so well."

"Then you need to start workin' with _me_ ," the young man shot back. "That is my best friend in there. We shouldn't have to go nuclear just to get a five word update outta you. And for your reference, _doctor_ , Mac never liked rap. If pop, rock, dance and country's upsettin' him, maybe it's because that's what we had on his playlist while he was in the coma. Maybe it's 'cause it reminds him of us, and how we aren't _in there_ like we oughta be."

The door behind them opened, and Jack turned his head only enough to confirm that it was the nurse. A glance back at the monitor showed that Mac was lying right where he had been, eyes still closed, but this time his stats were much closer to the blue.

Whether he'd been upset or not, Mac was _out_.

Bozer continued glaring at the doctor, his lower jaw set, and Dr. Parsons turned for the door like she was going to walk right out of it. Instead, she gestured her nurse inside, then waited for the door to close.

"Wilt, when you dropped your bestie off, I asked you a question. I asked you why he was here. You didn't answer me out loud, but you _do_ know the answer to that question, don't you?"

Jack wasn't sure what she was referring to, but a troubled expression crossed Bozer's otherwise frustrated face.

"There are plenty of good neurologists in LA. If your agency could get him in here, you could get him into any medical facility you wanted. Someone sent him here to protect him. Likely from the consequences of the op that put him in here in the first place. I can see that whatever it was that was hanging over your head's been partially resolved, Mr. Power of Attorney, but not what's hanging over his."

She turned further, her golden green eyes flicking to Jack's. "And you've been evaluating our security since the second you arrived, thinking you might have to get him out. So who are you protecting him from? Me? Or the people pulling all the strings?"

The doc was closer to the truth than she probably knew. Matty was the one pulling the strings - he hoped - but keeping him here instead of closer to home prevented Oversight – or any other agency – from getting access to him, same as them.

She turned back to Wilt. "If I give you the information you're looking for, then Angus is going to be fast-tracked straight to his interrogation before he's even had a chance to breathe on his own, let alone get his shit together and complete a self-assessment. If you want access, you've got it – and so do they. If you want him to recover safely, you let me do my job."

"Okay," Jack broke in, as Wilt took a breath to speak. "Listen up. Doc, you're wrong about that worst case scenario of yours." He indicated Mac, asleep on the screen. "If he's really in there, and he thinks something ain't right? You gotta get him outta his head right now or he's gonna crawl up in there and never come out. That ain't something that can wait a few weeks. That's somethin' you gotta worry about right this minute."

The hand that was pointing at the screen cut off Bozer's second attempt to talk. "If you do that, if you can keep him outta his head and occupied, then we're good. We're good," he repeated, willing Boze to understand. "Right now you're damn near torturin' him. You knock that off and treat our boy right, we'll stay outta your hair 'til he's ready to see us again."

" _Jack-_ "

Jack shook his head, once. "She's right, Boze. This buys him the most time." Time to heal enough that he could tell them himself, with his own voice, that he was okay. "An' if you need help settin' up some way for him to communicate, you call us."

The doctor's lips curved up a little. "The think tank cover?"

Jack couldn't help a snort. "When you got somebody like Mac around, it ain't a cover. He built damn near half the stuff we got."

And if they could get any of it to him, so that he could see it, he had some physical reminder that Phoenix was around, that they were there with him even if they couldn't be in the room –

Then they'd have a piece of Phoenix tech in the room. A trojan horse. Help out Mac, get Riley access, and maybe find a way to signal to Mac, all in one fell swoop.

"We'll work on that." Jack gave Wilt a silencing nod, then turned back to Parsons. "Deal?"

The doctor's expression didn't change at all, and Jack wasn't sure how much of what he'd left unsaid she'd caught. "I'll take it under advisement. Ultimately it's up to Angus."

"Mac," Bozer corrected sternly. "His name is Mac."

Simone looked faintly amused. "Mac," she amended. "I presume you'll be in touch directly?"

"Count on it," Jack replied, then turned for the nurse. "As for you, momma, you take care of our boy. He's a certified pain in the ass, but he's worth it."

"Don't I know it already," Wanda told him wryly. "Seems like he takes after you a bit."

She led them down the hall, not back to the physician offices but the most direct route, and two very large, very ex-military orderlies in immaculate white scrubs flanked the main entrance. They both gave Jack the same once-over, dismissing Bozer altogether, and Jack filed that away, along with the backup pieces strapped to their ankles and their very expensive tasers.

Bozer had said guns weren't allowed in the treatment areas, but apparently the orderlies were the exception.

Nurse Wanda stopped at the threshold, like the grail knight who couldn't pass beyond the temple's seal, and gave them both a nod. "You take care, boys. Be seeing you again, I expect."

Jack shot her a grin. "Like a bad penny."

She shook her head with a roll of her eyes, and then the doors slid shut.

Wilt wisely didn't open his mouth until they'd returned their badges to the same smiling receptionist, crossed the wide lobby and out into the beautiful early afternoon, and climbed into the rental. Jack gave him another pre-emptive head-shake, starting the car and guiding them at a sedate 14 miles per hour around the other side of the circular drive, and through the wide-open wrought-steel gate. Only when St. Mary-Dismas was fully in the rearview mirror did Jack finally speak.

"Text Riles. Have her dig up everything she can on Mac's doc."

Wilt gave a huff. "She already did. Parsons is clean –"

"I ain't talkin' about whether she's supposed to be there. I'm talkin' about why she's smotherin' Mac in bubble wrap." She seemed absolutely hellbent on going as slow as possible, and it didn't make any sense. She'd taken one look at Jack himself and known it was his collarbone, not a dislocated shoulder or a gunshot. It's not like that would have been in his personnel file. There was no way she could see that and _not_ see what they'd seen.

Mac was far more with it than she was willing to admit to them.

She was stalling them. And he sure as hell wasn't going to take her word for it that it was all to keep Mac safe from prosecution until he was healed.

Something else was going on.

-M-

Well, I intended to get a little further, but Jack and Bozer were pretty adamant about their screentime, so more power to our boys.

There are a ton of I guess easter eggs in here, that any of you who've read the entire Turkey Day series may or may not have picked out. Jack promised Mac that he wouldn't lie to him and always have a toy on hand in Ground Rules. That was also the first time Jack ever told Mac that 'sittin' still is about your least favorite thing.' The references to Observation One and Memorex are from the original Turkey Day, the room Mac woke up in at Phoenix, and the conversation he and Jack had in the Boys and Girls Club before Jack convinced him to hand over the gun. Maybe if I wrote faster, it would be easier to remember these things . . .

So, in summary – only one scene happened. Jack and Bozer are finally granted permission to see Mac, and it seems to go really well – or does it?


	29. Chapter 29

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

He knew he wasn't alone.

The thought had been bouncing around in Jack's head ever since they left St. Mary-Dismas, but never long enough for him to fully appreciate it. Bozer had been head down texting Riley, and he'd been watching for visible surveillance and any tech they could use to monitor who was going in and out of the facility. Then it seemed like they just sat down in the plane before they were touching down in LA. They got the hour back so they landed basically at noon, and still suspended or not, Jack followed Boze back into the building and right back to the couch in the Talbots' office to keep his promise.

He had watch.

It looked like Mac had been sacked the hell out for the two intervening hours, but Jack noticed that Mac's right fist was still wrapped tight around something – presumably the hacky sack. Mac was way too weak to do anything overly exotic with it, and Jack hoped the nurse had enough sense to leave it with him.

Proof that they'd been there, and he hadn't just dreamt it.

Proof that he hadn't been alone.

Even if it had all gone wrong, even if Mac had died that morning three weeks ago in Amsterdam, he would have died knowing that he wasn't alone. He'd known that they were there by his bed, talking to him. Keeping watch.

He'd heard them.

Something that had been wound tight in Jack's chest for damn near the entire month was slowly, slowly easing off. It had been a while since he'd felt it, years even, and he knew what was gonna happen when it finally let go.

So he didn't think about it. Didn't think about the hours in that dark, cold room, babbling about anything that came to his mind. Didn't think about the nights he was afraid to go to sleep, and wake up to a nightmare. Didn't think about anything but watching his partner, and keeping his promise.

Because watch wasn't over yet, and he couldn't relax until he was done.

Four hours in – and undisturbed by the doctors whose office had been completely commandeered since Mac had been checked into St. Mary-Dismas – his phone vibrated. Jack didn't immediately grab it, but after a few seconds, he got a second message, and he frowned and fished it out of his sling.

 **Tying up that bow.**

 **Last chance.**

Jack smirked to himself and sent back a thumb's up. Then he thought better of it, and also sent a thumbs down.

Let Saito make of that what he would.

Motion on the big screen caught his eye, and Jack watched as Storm the X-Man – now known as Wanda, though he definitely liked Storm better – came into view. She paused near Mac's waist, apparently speaking to him, but he didn't so much as twitch. She gave him a few moments, then came up to his head to check something. A blue latex hand reached out and smoothed his hair. He didn't wake.

Having finally met her, Jack was now quite sure that he liked her. More importantly, he was sure that she liked Mac. And reasonably sure that Mac was pretty okay with her too.

She stroked his hair again, but there was no response. His partner was _out_. He'd had a hell of a day, and Jack could relate. Even though all he'd done was get up, fly an hour, drive a car around, walk a little, yell, drive a car around, fly an hour, and hang out on a couch . . . he was pretty exhausted himself. It was by far the most he'd done since getting back to the United States, and his ribs were definitely sore.

But his exhaustion had nothing to do with his bones and Jack knew it. And maybe Mac was feeling the same way. Maybe the knot in his chest had also been released, just a little.

Maybe he finally knew that it was safe to sleep.

It was safe for both of them to sleep.

In fact . . .

After the second attempt to wake Mac failed, Storm backed off, apparently content to let him keep sleeping as long as he liked, and Jack took a deep breath, then pushed himself off the couch. Nurse Tasha caught him as he stepped into the elevator, and she raised a hand to signal him to wait. Jack gave her a big grin as the elevator doors slid shut.

His checkup could wait til tomorrow.

Jack got off on the ground floor, and got a hole in two. Riley was not in the War Room, as he'd guessed, but instead in the break room just down the hall from it, earbuds in, laptop on the table. A small pile of torn plastic was sitting beside it, among a few crumbs. And that sad little granola bar was probably all the lunch she'd had. Jack grinned to himself, then nonchalantly slipped behind her and slid into the chair to her right.

Riley jumped almost a foot straight into the air.

He couldn't help but chuckle as she yanked out her earbuds with a dirty look. "Dude! Really?"

Still chuckling, he handed over his phone. Riley gave him a strange look, then accepted it. ". . . uh . . . did you break it . . .?" Then she actually looked at it. "Did _Mac_ break it?"

 _Don't I wish_. "Nah, didn't let him get his grubby little hands on it. He says hi, by the way."

Her dirty looked faded a little into curiosity as she woke the phone and somehow magically made the lock screen go away, and she read the visible text thread. "Is . . . this supposed to mean something . . . ?" But then she trailed off.

Jack nodded. "John and Si have eyes on Donnovan."

Just like Saito had promised them. Matty had indeed given them the green light, and Saito and John Tunne had tracked down the asshole in Turkish intelligence that had orchestrated Riley's kidnapping, and were about to tie the whole thing up with a pretty bow.

Riley's face slipped into a neutral mask. "What's with the like dislike?"

Jack let his own grin turn wolfish. Truth be told, he wouldn't mind a bit if Robert Donnovan made the two Phoenix agents tailing him and tragically fell off the roof of a twenty story building before an admittedly still-healing John could wrestle him into custody. Jack didn't really think _anyone_ would mind if the guy didn't survive being taken in. But Riley might actually appreciate the closure, appreciate being allowed to actually see him in orange, being stuffed in a concrete box forever. She might appreciate hearing that door clang shut. Knowing she could access that camera whenever she wanted, and see that he was right where they'd put him. Right where he deserved to be.

"Si was just wondering if you wanted a word with this guy before we put him away."

If she knew what he was really getting at, she didn't acknowledge it, she just handed him back the phone. "I . . . no," she decided, wrinkling her nose. "No, he's wasted enough of my time."

"Fair enough." Jack accepted the phone, tucking it back into his sling. "Speakin' of the time, I think it's right about pizza and skeeball time. That rain check's burnin' a hole in my pocket."

Riley blinked at him. "You know that was a – you know what, nevermind." She closed her laptop with a sigh. "I'd love to, Jack, but I'm still digging into Mac's doc. Her file's about as redacted as yours or Matty's, and –"

"And it can wait until tomorrow," Jack finished, a little more gently. "Riles. The last of Aydin's guys just got rounded up. And Mac's doin' just fine. If this ain't a milkshake occasion, I don't know what is."

In all honesty, the milkshakes were about as good as the pizza – but that wasn't the point. It was also getting near five o'clock, but alcohol was not what either of them needed right now.

This hadn't been the kind of op you celebrated – but you damn well needed to acknowledge when it was over. And for right now, it was over. All the bad guys were caught. All the paperwork was filed. Mac still had a journey in front of him, but he was in there somewhere, and they'd get him back on his feet again.

It was over. And just like for Mac, just like for him, it was finally safe for Riley to sleep. No more boogeymen in the closet.

In her case, literally.

Riley looked like she was thinking about putting her armor back on, but this time it was a little too heavy, and she finally deflated a little bit. ". . . actually, that sounds awesome," she admitted. "But no skeeball. The last time you did skeeball left-handed, I think that attendant ended up with a blood blister on his knee."

The harmless banter got them all the way to Jack's car, and Riley barely balked before she slid in. "I'd tell you that I should drive, but since the skeeball conversation went sideways –"

"I will have you know I have taught courses on defensive driving left handed and left footed," Jack pointed out mildly, starting the engine. "You never know when you're gonna find yourself injured and on the run in Canada-"

She snorted. Loudly. "They drive on the right side of the road in Canada, Jack-"

"As long as it's the American side it's the right side."

She glanced over at him, exasperated and fond all at once. "How is it that you've been to every continent and you still can't keep track of which side of the road they drive on? Oh, wait, I know. It's because you don't pay any attention to which side of the road you're driving on _anyway_ –"

"I am a very safe driver, Riley –"

"Yeah, when you're not hanging out of a window shooting," she snarked good-naturedly. "Do you remember –" But then she stopped.

Jack glanced over at her, to see what had gotten her attention, but she was still staring at him. " . . . what?"

The strange expression was gone from her face almost as fast as it had appeared. "Nothing. Nothing, I . . ." She shook her head, suddenly interested in her phone. "Taken Landen Parkway, you don't want to get on the 10 right now."

"I don't wanna get on the 10 ever," he replied, hoping to restore the playful atmosphere, but she didn't bite. Instead, she frowned.

"Actually, Landen's just as bad." There was a series of small clicks. "Ugh. I hate LA sometimes."

Jack took that to mean the third way – the back way – was also a cluster. After all, it _was_ five o'clock. "I don't mind the traffic if you don't."

She stared at the phone in her hand another moment, then dropped it to her lap. "Actually . . . do you mind just taking me home? I'm just . . ." She trailed off.

"Tired," Jack supplied. When she didn't deny it, he decided to press. Just a little. "You been working solid since the hospital, Ri. You never took a break. But now we caught the last guy, it's a done deal. Matty'd definitely give you a few days."

Her response was immediate. "I'm good."

Jack closed his mouth. Quickest way to get her to clam up was to add the pressure, and he knew it, but -

"I'm okay," she added, more quietly. "I just . . . I was about to say, do you remember when you were teaching me to drive, but . . . that was Elwood."

Jack blinked, trying to latch onto this new thread of conversation. "Well, he don't exactly strike me as the best driver himself, Ri –"

"It was only once," she said quickly. "He . . . he wasn't around much, then, and . . . I didn't want to hear anything he had to say anyway."

Jack eased them out of traffic into an alley between two strip malls. If they couldn't get to pizza and skeeball, he knew the next best thing. She didn't even seem to notice.

"I didn't think about him at all." It sounded almost hollow. "I didn't think about mom either. I . . how selfish is that?"

"You mean . . . on the boat?" He kept his tone light and easy.

"Yeah." She was quiet a moment. "I don't . . . I don't think about it, ever. What would happen if – if I died. To them. How they'd find out. I . . ." Jack dared to glance at her, and found her eyebrows bunched in confusion.

"Of course not," he told her, like it was the most natural thing in the world. "When you're in the moment, you're just gettin' from one minute to the next."

"No, I-" But then she stopped herself again. "I had plenty of time to think. It's all I had. I thought about what you and Mac would do, I thought about . . . music, the clubs I used to go to where there was this DJ who . . ." She fell silent.

Jack found a break in traffic on a side street and got them back on their way.

Riley shook her head a little. "Nevermind."

He debated for a while before he opened his mouth. "Well, that's a good sign. That you weren't plannin' your own funeral, I mean. We got a name for that in this business. It's called givin' up."

"No, I . . . I knew . . . I mean, once Mac showed up, I was sure, but even before that –" She bit her bottom lip, and stared sightlessly out of the passenger window. This time he didn't push, and they were nearly to his apartment before she spoke again.

"Die Hard marathon?" Her voice was suspiciously husky.

He pasted on a grin that he wasn't feeling. "When in doubt, put your trust in Bruce."

She snorted. "Boze is gonna be pissed he's missing out."

"Ordinarily, that'd be true," he drawled, pulling into his parking space. "But Boze has a couple things on his mind right now. Your mission's over and done with. His . . . well, he's just gettin' settled in."

Bozer was without a doubt somewhere in a lab – probably with Specs - trying to come up with a way to help Mac communicate. Wilt wouldn't sleep easy until Mac was back in the house, under the same roof, and there wasn't a whole lot Jack could do about that.

But Mac _would_ be back in that house. His partner was alive and well and as soon as he could talk, he'd tell 'em all that himself.

He'd tell Bozer himself.

The tight coil in his chest inched loose another fraction, and Jack levered himself out of the car. "Pepperoni and banana peppers?" It was her go-to, after all.

Riley, too, had gotten out of the car, and she'd turned and put her hand on the headrest, like she intended to move the seat and grab her stuff. But something made her hesitate, and then he watched her face crumple in on itself.

"Oh, oh, hey, no," and he was around the car in a flash. She didn't rebuff him like she usually did; in fact, she seemed to forget that he was still in the sling at all, and hugged him hard enough to hurt. He didn't pull back an inch.

"Hey, hey, Riley, I'm here. I'm here. You're good."

"I k-know," she sobbed, half over his shoulder, half into his neck.

He gently stroked her back. "Honey, I'm sorry, we don't gotta get pepperoni if you don't wanna-"

As expected, he got a laugh – but it was still more of a sob, and he held her close. He couldn't make out the next few words – there were too many ss's, maybe scared, maybe sorry – maybe both. But then she heaved in a big breath.

"You're here," she told him, her voice thick. "You s-said you would be and you w-were-"

The boat.

Jack took a deep breath himself, stroking her hair to keep it out of his nose. "Yeah, baby. I told you, I'm not goin' anywhere."

And they didn't, not for a long moment. Another car pulled up but Jack didn't pay them any attention, he just held his little girl while the knot she was carrying unwound. She tried to explain it, and he caught half phrases here and there, but the words didn't matter. He could piece it together well enough, and it made his own eyes prick.

She hadn't thought about Elwood. Hadn't thought about Diane. Hadn't even really thought about dying.

But she'd thought about him. Believed without question that he would be there when she needed him to be.

And she still believed that he had been.

"Okay, kiddo, you're okay," he murmured, when it seemed like the storm was mostly past. His own chest had loosened another notch, and if he wasn't careful, they were both going to lose it.

He felt more than heard her start to pull herself together. "Mac is . . . is really . . .?"

"Yeah. Yeah. He's still pretty loopy, but you don't need to be worrying about him right about now. We're all okay. It's over, honey. It's all good."

Riley pressed her forehead into his neck as she rubbed her nose, and then she pulled away, and he let her. Her eye makeup had barely budged, but she swiped at it anyway, and he gave her a quick peck on the temple and then grabbed her bag from behind the passenger seat. She took it from him with a small noise of protest – again with the arm – and he led the way up the stairs to his second-floor apartment.

Her bag went onto the picnic table, per usual, and instead of settling on the couch or the barber's chair, she headed instead for the stools by the island. He took that as an indication that water was in order, and produced two bottles from the fridge. She accepted with a nod, and broke the seal with a crack, drinking deeply. He leaned against the sink counter and did the same, albeit a little slower.

Half the bottle was gone before she came up for air. "Thanks," she said, a little breathlessly, and then toyed with the plastic lid a moment. "It's not like . . . with the Organization guy. It's different."

Jack nodded quietly. "You're still hiding in work, though." The 'that ain't gonna help you' went unsaid but not unheard, because the corner of her mouth turned up.

"Matty said the same thing," she admitted, and took another swig of water.

Jack inhaled deeply. "It's gonna be different. Down in the data center, that was a whole lotta violence all at once, but when it was done, it was done. When someone hangs onto you, when it happens over a longer period of time, and you got time to think about it . . . that's a different kind of stress. It'll get out either way, though. Best not to hang onto it too long."

She glanced at him, and he thought she was going to call him out for doing it himself, but she didn't. "So Saito said."

Unbidden, he felt a little surge of pride – and jealousy. "Yeah, Si knows it as well as any of us. He tell you how he came by that pearl of wisdom?"

Riley silently shook her head, and Jack considered his next words carefully.

"Well, that's his story to tell, not mine. It ain't a pretty one." He sighed, then set the half-empty bottle of water on the counter, and seriously considered replacing it with a beer after all. "Most of us got a story or two, and I'm so damn sorry you got one of your own now."

"That's not your fault. I – working with Phoenix . . . at least this prison cell only lasted a week." She emptied her bottle.

That was true, had she not come to work with him she would _still_ be in a five by six serving the rest of her sentence, but it still made his heart ache. "You don't gotta tell me anything, but . . . is there anything I can do?"

The smile she gave him was small and vulnerable. "You just did."

That meant more to him than he could tell her, and he waved a hand in the air to distract them both. "I mean, there's field trainin', we can work on your skills in the gym, help ya feel a little more prepared . . ."

 _Just in case there's a next time._

God, he didn't want that for her. Never wanted that for her.

Riley cleared her throat. "Yeah. Yeah, that would probably help."

"Okay," he agreed quickly. "Yeah. We can get that scheduled, no problem."

She stared at the water bottle a second, then a mischievous little smirk covered the vulnerability. "I mean, when you're not suspended –"

Jack straightened and gave her a semi-serious reproachful look. " . . . is that payback for sneakin' up on you earlier?"

The smirk bloomed into a full-blown grin. "Not quite." But then it faded a little. "Bozer's freaking out too. I don't know what to do for him."

Jack stifled another sigh, then crossed the kitchen for the fridge, taking out two cold ones. "Wish I knew what to tell ya." He searched the utensil drawer for a church key. "Just . . . keep an eye on him for me, wouldja?"

A mini mission, something for her to focus on, might be just what she needed. A better distraction than work. But instead of latching onto the idea, she gave him a funny look.

"And where are you gonna be?" Then she shook her head like she'd said something stupid, and started peeling the label off the water bottle. "Oh. Duh."

She thought he was going to leave her to stay with Mac.

He abandoned the beers without a second thought, crossing the kitchen and putting his hands over hers. "I'm gonna be right here," he told her softly. "Right here."

It was gonna suck, not having them all in the same place, but he'd made it work before, and he'd make it work again. He held her eyes until he got a nod, and longer still, until he believed that she believed it, and then let her go, and uncapped the beers.

He heard her shoes hit the floor, two dull slaps, and turned in time to hand her one of the beers and watch her pad over to the couch. She curled up in her favorite spot, which was always on the left armrest, and he took up the remainder. Then he offered her the neck of his bottle.

She obediently clunked it with hers. "From the beginning?"

He fixed her with a very serious look. "You always start at the beginning, Riley. You can't fully appreciate number two without soaking in the evil that is Hans Gruber - did you just roll your eyes at me?"

Riley hid any sign of guilt behind a sip of beer. "Mmm. Well, then kick us off, by all means."

She was asleep before John McClane got off the airplane.

Jack finished his beer, then quietly pulled his phone out of the sling. The pizza order went off without a hitch, and then he launched the browser, and the secret website Riley had set up, and resumed his watch.

-M-

"Really?" she inquired drily, looking up from the tablet at the patient in the bed. "This is really the way you wanna do this?"

The patient did not respond. At least not consciously. Unconsciously was an entirely different story. His inflammation markers were still stupidly high despite the ear infection being completely under control, and the sepsis fully eliminated. His kidneys were still healing, but there was no sign of infection and his creatinine levels were reasonable, if not actually good. His lungs and chest were knitting and there was no fresh blood in his wound drains. His histamine was fine, meaning it wasn't an allergic reaction, and his white count had leveled off.

Whatever was chewing on him, his immune system had wiped its hands of it.

Which pointed yet again towards neurological. Stress. She'd expect to see these levels from a forty year old stock market drone putting in fourteen hours a day and subsiding entirely on coffee. And unfortunately, outside of peristalsis sounds in his intestines, she couldn't be sure if he was suffering from raging indigestion or not.

Really not that far off a med student. But he wasn't a med student. She would have killed for eight uninterrupted hours of sleep.

Right now he was in light sleep. Between the seizure and the visit with his Phoenix buddies, she knew he was physically exhausted, but after the first two hours spent in solid deep sleep cycles, he'd been settled into a very strange pattern. Now it was mostly light with occasional rises into REM, but not for long, and back down into light again. Either his brain didn't think it had much to do in the way of memory building, or it was avoiding REM for entirely different reasons.

And it was still way too early to speculate on that.

Simone glanced down at the patient's right fist, his fingers still curled around the toy Jack Dalton had given him. His stillness during sleep was a direct result of the neurogenic shock, but the persistent grip was more basic, the same kind of instinctive latching on of an infant. And there again, it was too early to speculate on that. He was desperate to keep it, but there was no way to know if it was in the way of a child clinging to his mother, or an adult clinging to their child.

She was going to have to ask him.

The door clicked quietly open, and Parsons watched her patient closely as Alec entered the room with the nutrition cart in tow. Unless they started putting something in his stomach, she was a little afraid his intestines were going to lose interest in trying to function. And if he _was_ suffering from GERD, a little something for his stomach acid to chew on might help. He could definitely use the extra calories, now that he was beginning to move consistently on his own, but he was unlikely to enjoy the application.

He wasn't really enjoying much of anything. He'd been all but ignoring the visual stimulation for the last couple days, and playing the disinterested card with both her and Wanda. The interaction he'd had earlier told her that was an act, probably a defensive one, but despite the fact that he should therefore be on alert, and wake at the sounds around him, MacGyver slept on, even though Alec wasn't being super quiet.

She was tempted to have Alec wake him, just to see what he'd do, but eventually decided against it. His trust was more important.

"Thank you, Alec," she acknowledged him, eyes still on her patient. "I'll put him through a few memory exercises, and then we'll sedate him and get the feeding tube inserted."

"You got it," he replied easily, catching on and speaking at a normal conversational volume.

And Angus _finally_ started to come around.

The same way he always did. Tightening of his eyes followed by a spasmodic gasp on the ventilator.

The lack of REM and the lack of seeming to remember that he was on a vent could be related, and she made a note while the patient took another panicked gasp, and his eyes flew open.

He focused on her immediately, then seemed to search the room – for Wanda, good – and his eyes fell on Alec. The male nurse gave him an easy smile, and Angus watched him as he struggled to normalize his breathing.

"We didn't mean to startle you," she told him, approaching on his left side, where Wanda typically would. "Do you remember what happened earlier?"

He didn't blink, didn't even look at her, but his right hand closed a little more tightly around the ball.

That was a yes.

"You had another seizure," she told him, in the same tone. "While you were resting, two friends came to visit you. Do you remember them?"

Alec remained still, beyond the foot of the bed and definitely too far away to touch him, and eventually MacGyver looked back at her. He'd won the fight against the ventilator and took his first fully easy breath. Then he gave her two blinks.

"That's good," she told him, and she meant it. "Do you remember Nurse Wanda coming back in after they left?"

His eyes shifted to the left – accessing visual memory – and then back to her, and he blinked, slowly.

That was a no.

"That's okay." Simone set the tablet down on the bed beside his empty left hand – and he made no move to grab it as she went through the normal checks of his equipment, his pupils, his reflexes. All part of his routine. So much so that he lost interest in her and went back to watching Alec, who had dropped back to the nutrition cart to finish the prep.

"We're going to work on some mental exercises today," she announced, and as expected, she regained his attention. "After that, I think you've earned a milkshake."

He seemed to think about that for a while, then he surprised her by lifting his left hand to lay it extremely close to his chest wound dressing. She almost stopped him, but all he did after that was reach up a finger to touch the ventilation tube. He made no move to grasp it or pull it out, he simply indicated it, his eyes questioning.

She shook her head in response. "No, we have to leave the ventilator in for a while longer. Your lungs aren't strong enough yet to breathe on their own. You have more healing to do."

He took the news pretty well, relaxing his finger, but the questioning expression didn't leave his face. So he'd put together that he couldn't eat until the tube was gone.

"We're going to insert a feeding tube down your throat, into your stomach. You won't be able to taste it, but we need to start getting you used to digesting food again."

He neither agreed nor disagreed, and his left hand remained where it was, high on his chest, while she worked on his legs and his feet. He didn't play with the dressing, and he didn't make a move for the tube. He just seemed to like leaving it there.

Maybe the change of position was nice. They could only move him up or down about thirty degrees without causing the ventilator tube to rub him the wrong way, and while the bed compensated for bed sores by shifting him regularly – and his daily physical therapy – perhaps it was time to start turning him. She made the mental note while she tested the reflexes in his feet.

No better than the morning, and not significantly better than the last couple days. That damn inflammation was squeezing his spinal column.

"Okay. We're going to do something new. Can you focus on the screen for me?"

His eyes obediently shifted to the screen above him as she recollected her tablet and brought up the name recognition program. Now that he'd met someone he knew, and he should be aware that he was safe, he shouldn't have any qualms about responding to her honestly. That was half the trouble with spies – you could never be sure if they were lying because they thought it was their duty, because they just wanted out, or because they legitimately didn't know the right answer.

However, the first thing she brought up wasn't his name. It was a picture of a hen. He stared at it a second, then looked at her, and she changed the screen. Now there were four words displayed.

Cow. Rat. Hen. Dog.

He looked at the screen for a long second.

"Is the word for the picture you saw earlier up on the screen?"

He stared for another long second, and then he gave her two blinks. Yes.

She clicked to the next screen without comment, a gamboling golden retriever. She let him view the picture for a second, then moved on to a grid of four words.

Dog. Cat. Rat. Bog.

"Is the word for the picture you saw before this up on the screen?"

His eyebrows came together a moment, but it didn't stop him from blinking twice, with surety.

They moved on to more complex words. Horse. Giraffe. Then plurals, cow versus cows. That one also seemed to confuse him, though the second time, mouses versus mice, he seemed to catch onto the rules. Mouses was up there, but it wasn't a word.

They went through at least a dozen iterations before he stopped staring at the screen, and started staring at her. Simone gave him an impassive look. "Look at the screen."

He didn't. He continued staring at her.

"Are you in pain?" she asked him, with the exact same tone as her other questions. In answer, he blinked once.

"Are you bored?" She didn't change her inflection in the slightest.

Two immediate blinks.

"Are you excited?"

He stared at her for a good ten seconds before he gave her a firm blink. Definitely not.

If he was guessing, he was doing a pretty damn good job of it.

"Do you want me to move on to something else?"

Two immediate blinks.

She changed the screen background color, and he glanced back at the screen.

MacGyver. McGuyver. MacGuyver. McGuver.

"Is your name on the screen?"

He stared at it a long moment without blinking. Then his eyes slipped back to her, still without blinking. She gave him absolutely nothing in return but the same impassive stare.

He blinked, but it seemed to be involuntary, then he looked back at the screen. Then he made up his mind, and gave her two blinks.

After all, she clearly knew his name at this point, even though she'd never said it. Four iterations of it were on the screen. Even if he didn't want to admit he knew his name to a stranger, the writing was on the wall. Or the ceiling, to be more precise.

Then she showed each of them individually. "Is that your name?"

He gave her an affirmative for MacGyver, and a negative for the other iterations.

She tapped the screen, and four more iterations came up.

MevGacyr. MaGcyevr. MacGyver. MacGvyer.

"Is your name on the screen?"

The look he shot her was almost a glare, but he stared at the screen again, and this time he really, really studied it.

"Is your name the first name?"

An immediate no.

"Is your name the second name?"

Another immediate no.

"Is your name the third name?"

The two blinks were thoughtful.

"Is your name the fourth name?"

He gave her another two blinks, just as thoughtful as the first two.

There was no record of dyslexia in his file, but it could be a vision issue as much as a letter order issue. She gave him nothing, no indication that any answer was right or wrong, and then flipped to his first name, and repeated the patterns. This time, when he had to choose between Angus and Agnus, he was correct.

Then she put up four more words.

Angus. Agnus. MacGyver. Mac.

"Is your name on the screen?"

He told her it was.

"Is your name the first name?"

He gave her one blink. No.

She didn't even hesitate. "Is the second name your name?"

Another single blink. Nope.

"Is the third name your name?"

This one he owned up to, and told her it was.

"Is the fourth name your name?"

That one he confirmed as well.

He had clearly recognized his name as Angus previously, and not gotten it confused with Agnus. For him to turn it down the last time was deliberate. He didn't want to be called Angus.

"You want to be called MacGyver or Mac?"

He looked at her, really looked at her, and then gave her two deliberate blinks.

"Okay, MacGyver. That's what we'll call you."

He gave her two blinks for good measure, then closed his eyes, and she watched him roll them around under his lids.

"Are your eyes dry?"

He opened said eyes, and to her surprise gave her two blinks. Honest about his name _and_ his discomfort. Eureka.

"Would you like me to put some drops in them?"

She got a yes, and set down the tablet to do just that. Again, she set it within his reach, but he never attempted to grab it. He was calm as she applied the eyedrops, and blinked rapidly to spread the liquid around.

"Okay, MacGyver. I'm getting the feeling that you're frustrated with the current program of therapy and stimulation. Is that right?"

Two emphatic blinks. That was his version of 'hell yes.'

"Would you like to do these sorts of mental exercises again?"

He glared at her, and gave her a single blink. Simone couldn't help it. She smiled.

"Would you prefer different mental exercises?"

An immediate affirmative was his reply.

"Do you remember what I told you about the ventilator?"

He hesitated, then told her that he did.

"That's going to limit how much testing we can do. Do you agree?"

She got a very reluctant yes.

"Your friends thought you might be frustrated too. They're working on a solution. When they finish it, would you like to try it?"

An immediate yes.

"Okay," she agreed. "If we do this, you and I, you have to do something for me. You have to start being honest. Don't you glare at me," she added at his look. "Honest about your pain, honest about any difficulty, honest about your mood, your thoughts, and the sensations in your body. If I ask you a question, _any_ question, you have to tell me the truth. Can you do that?"

He gave her a _long_ look, so long she almost thought it was refusal, but he relented, and blinked twice. The message was obvious – he was not happy about this arrangement. Not happy at all.

" _Will_ you do it?" she asked.

This time the double blink came faster. Acknowledging that he knew the difference.

"There will be discomfort when we insert the feeding tube. Do you understand that?"

He said that he did.

"Do you want to be sedated?"

An immediate no.

Parsons cocked an eyebrow. "Do you think experiencing that discomfort will help you heal?"

MacGyver gave her a look, then glanced to his right. He didn't blink, but he used the ventilator to sigh. Almost to huff, really. It would have been cute if he wasn't refusing to answer her question.

"Let me tell you what I think, and you tell me if I'm on the right track. I think that you're afraid to sleep."

He continued to look away.

"I think you _want_ to sleep, but you're afraid you'll dream."

He didn't react.

"I think something about waking up scares you. Every time. And I think it hurts." She didn't think that last part as much as know it, at least physically. There was no way his chest was healed enough not to feel like it was tearing every time he did it.

"Am I right?"

He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath on the ventilator. But he didn't open them again.

Parsons gave him a sigh of her own – an audible one. "You just promised me that you'd be honest with me, and now you're not. Do you see why I'm hesitant to change your treatments? I can't treat you if I don't know what you're experiencing."

He continued to ignore her, and she picked up the tablet and started charting. If he wanted to give her the silent treatment, she was fine with that. She had a damn tablet to keep herself occupied.

And soon enough it occurred to him that all he was going to achieve was falling asleep, because he did open his eyes, and give her a deeply reproachful look, less than two minutes later. She eyed him over the edge of the tablet.

"Oh, you're talking to me again?"

The expression changed subtly, but she wasn't able to decipher it.

"So. Am I on the right track?"

Eventually, reluctantly, she got two blinks. Yes.

"Okay," she told him. "I won't sedate you. However, I will give you something for pain, and something to relax your muscles so that the tube goes down more easily. It won't make you sleepy, and we'll counter the muscle relaxant so that it's only temporary. Is that okay?"

He didn't seem to like that option much better, but he blinked twice. She nodded.

He didn't like the idea of being relaxed much more than he liked the idea of being asleep. The paralysis could certainly be what was keeping him on edge, but unfortunately, until he chilled the fuck out about it, his own stress was going to lengthen the amount of time the neurogenic shock stuck around.

But maybe there was something she could do about that, too. "Okay. Do you want to hang onto that ball?"

She indicated the toy, still being held in his right hand, which had not shifted at all except to curl a little into the sheet, almost like he was trying to hide it from them. Even after she called him out, he didn't so much as twitch his right hand.

But he did give her two stubborn blinks. Yes.

"Okay. If you're going to keep it, you might as well use it." She stepped away, signaling to Alec that it was time to prep the nutrition equipment. "The more you practice using your hands and fingers, the more quickly you'll gain back dexterity. Don't go crazy," she added, giving him a warning look. "Don't do anything that hurts. Do you understand?"

He gave her a thoughtful look, then blinked twice.

-M-

Jack shook his head. "Yeah, it always seems harmless. Until it's Skynet."

From the other side of Sparky – minus his face, which made the damn thing that much creepier – Bozer made a scoffing sound. "Jack, you have watched way too many movies. Have you actually ever been attacked by a robot army?"

"Hell yes," he answered immediately. "What do you think drones are, Boze?"

Half a dozen wires were running out of Sparky's head to an innocent-looking white rectangle about the size of a paperback book, which was then attached by a single wire to Riley's laptop. She wasn't looking at either of them, but her expression said plenty. "Drones are commanded by human pilots, Jack. They're like RC toys, just bigger."

"If by bigger you mean packing nuclear warheads, then yeah, I guess," he growled. "I still don't see what this has to do with Mac, unless you're gonna make Sparky, like, an Iron Man suit that helps him walk." That thought hadn't occurred to him until right that second, and he decided that he liked it. He liked it a lot. "Hot damn, are you making Sparky into an Iron Man suit?!"

Bozer popped up from behind the deactivated robot. "Jack, does it look like we can fit Mac inside Sparky? I know he's skinny, but come _on_ , dude."

Bummer. "Then I'm back to my first question. How is this helpin' Mac?"

He'd already kind of – sort of – grasped the high points, but for the first time since they'd gotten back from St. Mary-Dismas, Bozer actually looked like himself again. Excited about an idea. More importantly, excited about helping Mac. And he was more than happy to explain said idea again.

"I told you, Jack. Jill and I were working on the programming to help Sparky move –"

"Which is another terrible idea," Jack groused. Wilt ignored him.

"- and one of the things we did was motion capture of hand movement. How fingers and tendons move, so that his servos and mechanism could be mapped to those movements automatically. He'd be able to write with a pen, dribble a basketball –"

"You put that thing on a football field, Imma show you what a quarterback would do to him," Jack warned.

"The point _is_ ," Bozer pressed, "the same motion capture system we designed for Sparky can do motion capture and translation for Mac."

"We tweaked it down so that it's looking for very basic motion," Riley supplied. "The cameras can see the smallest movements, so Mac doesn't have to move his knuckle more than a millimeter for the system to figure out what the end result would have been if he could have moved his whole finger."

Yaddah yaddah. Basically it was a hand twitch translation device. Wiggle a finger, and it would be like you typed a whole thesis. He wasn't sure it was gonna work, but they were, and that was enough for Jack. "Is it gonna do what we need it to do?"

Riley smirked at her laptop. She'd woken up from her exhausted nap last night in time to wolf down half the pizza, only to sack out again in his bed til morning, and the difference was stunning. The circles under her eyes were significantly lighter, and so was the way she carried herself. It was like she'd shucked a fifty pound pack, and he'd happily crash on the couch for the next month if it meant she'd finally be able to sleep again.

When he'd handed her a coffee this morning, she'd even smiled.

"Oh yeah," she assured them confidently. "Multiple cameras means multiple angles. We'll have full remote access via an encrypted tunnel back to Phoenix under the guise of processing, and audio to boot. We'll be able to see and hear everything that happens in that room."

Good. "And it's all gonna be tied back to Sparky here?" Jack gestured at the seated robot, holding its own featureless white faceplate in its lap.

"Nope." Riley indicated the cardboard boxes strewn around the lab table. "I ordered a few toys from that gray hat convention before I got grabbed. They came in a couple weeks back. We're talking _insanely_ small processors. It'll have all the power it needs. The tunnel back to us is all for show."

She unplugged the small white rectangle from her rig, and Jack stared at it. There were four small black dots on the front, and a blue light emanating from its interior.

"Okay, so we can see and hear him. Can he see and hear us?"

"Audio in, yes. Audio out, no," she admitted. "I disguised the microphone as another lens, but a speaker would have been way too obvious. Still, as long as he remembers his morse code, and this thing is in line of sight, then he can see us, and we can see him."

On the front of the device, a previously invisible little orange light started flickering. Dot dot dot dot. Dot dot.

HI

"Sweet." Jack walked over to the innocuous looking device and leaned down, peering into a few of the black dots. "Am I ready for my close-up?"

Riley clicked a few keys.

"Aaaugh! My eyes!" Bozer cried dramatically, and Jack caught a flicker of his own nostril, in all its enlarged glory, on the big screen as he turned to look.

"I am _so_ getting you a nose-hair trimmer for Christmas! Or maybe your birthday. Which one's sooner?"

"His birthday was in February, Boze," Riley informed him distractedly. "You got him a six pack of weird Texas beer and another batch of scar cream."

"Oh yeah. Maybe if you put that cream on your face, it'll look better."

Jack leaned up and away from the little device and took a threatening step in Bozer's direction, and he scampered out from behind Sparky to the safety of the other lab table.

God, it felt good to play again. Even if it was only for a second, and even if Mac was only there in spirit. It was one of his favorite labs, Jack could practically hear Mac's laugh in the echo of Bozer's.

"Can you get into the rest of their network from it? Take down security?"

Riley swiveled in the seat so that she was staring at him. "Yeah, Jack, of course it can," she assured him, even though her eyebrows were doing that thing that meant she didn't mean a word of it. "It's a little Transformer, when everybody goes to sleep it'll sprout arms and legs and go kick everyone's ass."

"Awesome," he replied enthusiastically. "But, just so we're on the same page here . . . are you _sure_ Baby Sparky here's an Autobot? Because sometimes, when you two ain't around, I get a kinda Decepticon vibe . . ."

Riley looked to Bozer for support. "Am I Megan Fox in this metaphor?"

Bozer looked like a deer in headlights. "Yesssss?" Then he seemed to think better of it. "Uh . . . no? I mean-"

A computer behind Riley chirped, and Bozer whipped around ninety degrees like a professional dancer. "Saved by the bell!"

Riley rolled her eyes and shoved herself away from the lab table, rolling gracefully to the next one, and commandeering that keyboard. After a few taps, the playful expression faded, and Jack went ahead and circled the table, coming around to join her.

"What's up?"

A few document images appeared on Riley's screen. Personnel records, no black lines in sight. "I think I just got the four one one on Mac's doctor," she murmured, and with a gesture, flicked two of the documents onto the lab's big screen. Jack transferred his attention there while she focused on a couple other images.

"Yep. Simone Parsons, that's her," he confirmed, looking at her smiling face. The date on the record told them the file was from six years ago, but the grinning woman in the profile photo could have been Simone's daughter. Her face was so open, so youthful and cheerful he almost wanted to smile back.

Bozer whistled. "Damn. Are we sure this isn't the good twin?"

Meaning that the Simone they met was the evil one. "Boze, what did we say about you jinxing shit . . ."

There was certainly nothing evil looking in her personnel file. Undergrad was Harvard, grad was John Hopkins, resident at Cornell and Vanderbilt. Parents were alive and well and lived in Boulder. No siblings, no criminal record. Jack scanned down to the next paragraph.

"Hoo-wee, lookie there. Top secret, SCI and SAP clearance. This chick gets to read all the best comic books." She'd been accredited with the CIA, FBI, NSA, DHS, and a couple dozen foreign intelligence organizations. Explained why she was allowed to treat 'damaged assets.' Hell, she probably knew whether the moon landing had been faked.

The freckles were still there, and the green eyes flecked with gold, but the hard lines around her mouth, the way she held her jaw, the tension he'd seen in every muscle on her face – no sign of any of it anywhere. This woman was happy and optimistic. The Simone Parsons he'd met was sarcastic and jaded.

"So what the hell happened to you?" he wondered aloud.

Riley cocked her head towards him, then sent another few files their way. "That's exactly what I wondered. So I went and looked. And there's nothing there. She's gotten national recognition for her work in neuroplasty, she's published seven papers, no suspicious purchases or deposits, no hits to her credit, no marriage or divorce, no weird behavior. She's been working at St. Mary-Dismas for a decade in the Neurology department, and they made her the head of it – wait for it -"

"Six years ago?" Jack guessed drily.

"Give that man a prize." A new face popped up on the screen. "Her boss has always been the same guy, a Dr. Seth Collins."

His personnel profile was still mostly redacted, but Jack recognized him from the videoconference they'd had with Parsons the week prior.

"And the two nurses we ran facial rec on, Alec Dubois and Wanda MacFarlane, they both started at St. Mary-Dismas four years ago, on the same day." Two more personnel files popped up, with far fewer redactions. They still had the same security clearance, though.

"All right, so . . . they promoted her six years ago, her current nurses got hired four years ago –"

"Here's where it gets interesting," Riley interrupted. "The four nurses that had worked for her _before_ the two current ones got hired, they all transferred out of St. Mary-Dismas within three months of each other."

A few more personnel records popped up. Three of the four were now working in other hospital systems, and the fourth – a Meghan Curless – wasn't even working in healthcare anymore at all. At least not human healthcare.

"Veterinary assistant?" Jack read aloud. "That's a hell of a pay cut. What did they have these nurses doin' . . . ?"

"Well, that's the weird part." A few more documents popped up, lists of patients. "For the first two years she was head of the department, they were treating upwards of eighty-three patients a year. Around the time the original nurses started bailing, the number of patients being seen halved. She hasn't treated more than forty-two patients in any year since, and never more than five at a time."

Jack stared at the lists, scanning the patient stay durations. Some were dishearteningly short – only a few days. He figured those probably hadn't gone well. The rest of them were anywhere from one to three months, some as long as six. As he scanned the yearly lists, those numbers didn't seem to deviate much.

So she wasn't losing fewer patients or having them stay longer – she'd just had her workload, and her nurses, cut in half. "She screwed up," he concluded.

Beside him, Riley shook her head. "Yeah, I thought that too, but the last dozen patients before whatever went down, they were all discharged after being treated like normal."

"Are they all still alive?" Bozer asked suddenly.

"Uh . . ." Riley returned to the keyboard, and did some more typing. A few names and faces started trickling in, and Jack recognized more than one CIA profile headshot. There was no pattern to them – men and women both, ages ranging from twenty-something to almost sixty, different ethnicities, different nationalities.

Then one of the images, a young man with perfectly coiffed, dark brown hair flashed, and a red date appeared underneath it.

His death was a mere eight days after his discharge date. And fourteen days before the nurses started quitting.

"So what the hell happened to . . . Howard Garcia?"

Riley started digging again, and Bozer fished his phone out of his pocket and started typing. Jack raised an eyebrow.

"You're gonna out-hack Riley?"

Bozer shook his head, his thumbs flying across the screen. "Hell no. But if Mac's doc is responsible for patients dyin', I'm taking all my vacation right now and we're getting him outta there _tonight_."

Jack clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Dude, why don't you sit on that a minute and give Riles a chance to –"

". . . guys . . ."

A news article appeared on the screen, an Italian website. The software started translating the text, but Jack had already caught the name 'Howard Garcia' under the photo of a mangled BMW being winched up a sheer rocky drop.

Car crash.

Bozer, too, had looked up. ". . . huh. Guess I was expecting something, I dunno, more sinister than just a car wreck –"

"It wasn't just a car wreck." Riley's voice was tighter. "It says he drove off the cliff on purpose."

Jack started reading like he meant it. " . . . eyewitness accounts stated the driver of the vehicle, twenty-six year old Howard Garcia, deliberately rammed a guardrail and drove an additional forty yards to the cliff's edge-"

". . . and there were two passengers," Bozer added quietly.

Andrea and Lorenzo Garcia. His wife and four year old son.

So Parsons had treated and discharged a patient, and the next week he'd put his family in the car and driven them off a cliff.

". . . maybe he had, I dunno, a seizure?" Bozer said it like he was begging Riley to confirm it.

Jack looked back at Howard's profile. Twenty-six years old, good looking guy. Italian AISE agent. He was a language specialist, fluent in over two dozen and capable of reading and speaking another fifty or so at some level.

Smart.

Mac-level smart.

"The article says it was a straight shot. The police ruled it a . . . a murder-suicide." Riley hesitated, then a coroner's report came up, also in Italian. Jack didn't bother even trying to read it.

"That was no accident," he said quietly. "And she knew it."

Dr. Parsons knew it. She'd discharged someone who wasn't ready, and not only did her patient die, he took two innocents with him.

That's why she was packing Mac in bubble wrap. She was afraid he was going to end up like Howard.

"Riles, get everything you can on this guy and send it down to the docs Talbot. Find out if his injury was anything like what they're treatin' Mac for."

-M-

TWO DAYS LATER

"Good morning, handsome!"

Today they'd decided to put rain on the menu, and a strong summer storm was raging just outside Patient Five's room. Rain was pelting against the glass, dribbling down the window panes, and MacGyver was watching the rivulets with a pensive expression.

Wanda followed his gaze. "Yeah, it's miserable out there," she murmured, then came up on his left – always on his left – and started swapping out the empty medicine bags for fresh ones. "Days like this, you're thankful for covered parking."

It was important, for continuity's sake, that everything appeared to be real. It was actually a beautiful day outside, but the patient needed different stimulation, and if they wanted him to believe it was raining, she had to explain why she wasn't soaking wet.

Either way he didn't really look at her, he just kept his eyes on the rain.

That tracked with his previous behavior; he loved nature and weather, even on his screens, though right now the TV was displaying a college basketball game. Every once in a while he checked the score, but the game didn't hold his attention, just like football and soccer hadn't. Definitely not a jock.

"I should let you know that Dr. Parsons isn't going to be in today for your therapy, handsome," Wanda continued, surreptitiously drawing a blood sample from one of his central lines, then tucking it into her scrub pocket before grabbing the used tubing and bags and carrying them to the trash on the far wall. "She had a procedure last night that just finished up, and needs some rest."

When she turned around, he was watching her, not the rain. His eyebrows rose up in a little, as if in question. Wanda gave him a smile.

"You're not our only patient, you know."

The eyebrows relaxed a little, and his attention returned to the window. So now he was fully prepared for a boring day of staring at rain.

Just what the boss ordered.

"Can I get you anything? Are you in pain? Are you hungry?"

He gave her the barest of headshakes, rather than a blink, and used the ventilator to sigh a little. They'd let him wake up by himself his morning – he was an expert at self-soothing now, even if he still woke panicked – and he'd spent the first fifteen minutes he was awake watching the rain, and passing the hacky sack over his stomach, from his right hand to his left hand.

He was certainly more coordinated with his left, which was no surprise given that he'd been stabbed just to the right of center and his right pec and shoulder had weeks and weeks of healing still to do, and right now the hacky sack was in his left hand, and he was running his fingertips slowly over the seam.

"Are you counting the stitches, there?" she asked him lightly, and gestured at the ball when he glanced back at her.

He rubbed his fingers thoughtfully over the material, then gave her a blink.

"Can you feel the stitches, even if you can't count 'em?"

Two blinks. So he had some sensation back, but not full. "That's okay, handsome. It'll come back."

He didn't look reassured, and a little flash of lightning pulled his attention back on the windows.

"Okay. Well, if you need me, you use that button on the side of the bed, okay? If you call, I'll come runnin'."

He had enough coordination now to use the normal bed call feature, and they'd gone over it with him yesterday, and tested him yesterday afternoon to ensure that he remembered, and he knew how to operate it. In this case, he gave the window two distracted blinks, and continued running his fingertips over the hacky sack.

He looked downright miserable, and Wanda hid a smile.

Right on cue, the door clicked quietly open, and soft, whispery footstetps hit the tile. MacGyver didn't look over, not until Dr. Parsons was fully in the room and set down the small litterbox she was carrying. Two ceramic dishes hit the ground next, and by the time Simone leaned up, MacGyver had turned his head in her direction, and was watching with a confused look on his face.

Mone leaned up, her left arm still tucked up and out of his field of vision, and ignored him, speaking to her. "Remember allergy protocols, One's violently allergic."

"Yes ma'am," Wanda confirmed, and then Dr. Parsons fully turned, and approached the patient – on his right side.

"I apologize, MacGyver, but I'm on mandatory rest for the next six and half hours." She looked the part, in nurse scrubs and bunny slippers, with her hair falling out of a ponytail. Tucked in her left arm like a football was a small, mostly white kitten with eyes as wide and blue as the patient's.

"I'd like to get some sleep, and you probably want to avoid it, so we're going to do your therapy differently today."

Without preamble she angled her hip, and the ten week old kitten took the invitation, and slipped down her forearm to the mattress. MacGyver actually turned his head to look at the kitten as she tentatively wandered over to his right arm and sniffed him. His eyes were still wide open and startled.

But not fearful. His heart rate was steady, and his BP wasn't increasing.

"This is Metrodora. She's named after a Greek physician, and she is a therapy animal in training. She'll be handling your physical therapy today." Simone reached out and stroked the kitten fondly as she continued exploring MacGyver's arm. "Don't let her chew on any of your lines, and when you're tired, call Nurse Wanda to come and get her."

And with that, Dr. Parsons padded her way out of the room. Wanda watched MacGyver sit there, frozen, listening to the door open, then click softly shut. His still-startled eyes then cut to her.

Nurse Wanda gave him a broad smile. "Well okay then. I know she's small, but she bites," she warned him. "As soon as you're ready, or if she gets to be too much for you, you just page me with that button there, okay?"

She waited, then ducked her head with an expectant look, and MacGyver gave her two firm blinks. He also turned his right arm over, and the Siamese kitten immediately started checking out the crevasse between his arm and his body, complete with her super-fine, super-sharp little kitten claws. His eyebrows twitched, but his arm didn't move. He made no aggressive motion towards the kitten at all. Instead, he tried to wiggle his fingers, and Dora immediately clambered over to investigate.

"I leave you in Metrodora's capable paws," Wanda told him, then gathered up her things and glanced at him, checking one more time with him before she, too, left the room.

Simone was already camped out in her conference room, slippered feet on the table, danish in hand, by the time Wanda cleaned up and knocked on the door. "How's handsome doing?"

The doctor simply gestured at the screen. Right now he seemed to be trying to keep the kitten away from the edges of the bed, and Dora was trying to pull one of his fingers off the rest of his hand. He made no sudden moves, though they both knew he could, and then he turned his wrist, flipping the kitten onto her back. She started wrestling like she meant it, and he took a quick breath off the vent as she apparently got him.

But he didn't throw her across the room. All his movements were gentle.

He'd never once behaved aggressively towards any of them, and he was continuing to follow that pattern. Though he was clumsy and not terribly coordinated, he managed to keep Dora on the bed and away from his chest dressing and central line, and eventually he put together that he had a cat toy in the hacky sack, and introduced her to that.

Once that happened, it was _on._ Dora was on her back, ripping into the hacky sack for all she was worth, and MacGyver was manipulating it, keeping it twitching and moving to keep the kitten's attention. Wanda eventually had to leave the conference room to handle her other patients, with her iPhone set to vibrate as usual, but she managed to get through everyone's morning routine as well as two lunches before it finally buzzed.

 **Check on Patient Five.**

Who was handily right next to Patient Four, who was happy to see that he'd been given chocolate pudding for dessert. Wanda left Four and was all set to breeze into Five, but something made her hesitate, and instead of bustling in and making noise, she decided to try stealth.

It paid off.

There was no sound in the room save the patter of rain on glass and the steady, slow hiss of the ventilator. Wanda crept softly around the privacy curtain, peering around.

MacGyver was sound asleep.

So was Metrodora. She'd draped herself pretty much across his throat, tucked just under his chin, and his left hand was curled up near her, his arm folded alongside his chest and neck. It should have been causing him discomfort, having weight so near the tube in his throat and his wound, but it didn't seem to be bothering him at all, and Dora was asleep and purring like a distant gang of Harley Davidsons.

Wanda didn't bother to hide her smile, and she went ahead and drew another blood sample from his central line, without waking either him or the kitten. She didn't bother to pull out her iPhone – if the patient was happy, there was no reason to wake either of them - and she pocketed the blood sample and stole out as quietly as she could.

She carried the sample down to the lab, then changed her scrub top – just to be sure, and again only because the patient in One was _violently_ allergic to cats – and by the time she let herself back into the conference room the results were up on the screen.

Simone had changed back into her regular clothes – of course keeping the bunny slippers – and was comparing the morning's blood work to the afternoon's.

Inflammation markers and cortisol were significantly higher in the morning results. Metrodora had definitely had an impact.

A positive one.

"Well, that answers that," Simone murmured, lining the two results up side by side on the screen.

The presence of the kitten had significantly decreased his stress hormones. Which meant that the stress and the inflammation was neurological. He was doing it to himself, working himself up.

He was scared. Far more scared than he seemed.

"I can't think of many problems that a kitten can't fix," Wanda pointed out reasonably. "Looks like that hunka burnin' love that came to visit a couple days ago was right. He's bored."

Simone shook her head. "It's more than that. Look at this."

She toggled over to his brainwaves, lining them up to baseline. He'd been asleep for the past forty-five minutes, and had just moved from a deep sleep cycle –

Into REM.

He was dreaming. Yet his heart rate and blood pressure were nice and relaxed.

For once, Patient Five was having a good dream.

-M-

I know this one took a while. Sorry about that! For the first time in this story, I have given you literal fluff. Because honestly, our boy deserved a kitten.

A lot happened, and a lot of them were FINALLY!(s). Jack and Riley finally talk. Simone finally determines keeping Mac on the slow track is doing him more harm than good. Phoenix finally finds out why Simone is treating Mac the way she is. And Mac finally has a good day.


	30. Chapter 30

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

He practically bounced into the room, with one of those superior little smirks on his face, and Matty held up a hand. "Yes, Jack, I know about the kitten."

Her tone and body language didn't dampen his spirits in the slightest, but he did have the presence of mind to close the door behind him. "Yeah, but did you see this?" He dropped onto the arm of a chair, smartphone in his slinged hand, and pulled something up. The smirk grew into a goofy smile, and then he turned the phone around, and Matty suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

It was a close-up of Mac from the video they were getting from St. Mary-Dismas. The Siamese kitten had decided it wanted to sleep up near Mac's chin, for whatever reason, and it was curled up against the left side of his jaw, its little front paws draped over his throat. At first she thought it was just a still shot, and was about to dismiss it when the kitten stirred a little, yawning and exposing a tiny, curled pink tongue. Her front legs stretched out, claws flexing languidly, before she brought them up to her little face and half-heartedly wiped it. Then she stilled, apparently tuckered out, with her paws still covering her face.

MacGyver responded to the kitten's movements by lifting his chin a little, his eyes still closed, and making room for her. They stayed like that a moment, then both relaxed simultaneously back into deeper sleep.

Despite herself, Matty smiled.

That was just _ridiculous_.

"You know we're going to have to delete all that footage if Mac comes back," she told him. He would be deeply embarrassed that he'd been so closely observed in all these vulnerable, intimate moments of healing.

Jack's fond smile dimmed a little. "I think you mean 'when', there, boss lady."

"That's not up to either of us." She turned away from the image on the phone, reclaiming her tablet from the coffee table. "It's definitely good news, but he has a long way to go." The doctors Talbot were cautiously optimistic, given what they'd observed and the slightly more forthcoming information from Mac's care team. They were now quite sure that Mac would have some sort of productive life after this. His recovery was going according to plan, and he was steadily improving.

She didn't dare hope that her agent was going to come out of this whole. Not yet. It was too soon, no matter how stinking cute it was to watch him playing with a kitten, to see a little smile not on his lips, but in his eyes. It was his eyes that were worrying her. Matty was no stranger to debilitating pain, and how exhausting healing could be. Her own was nothing compared to Mac's, and even weeks after the grenade and the fall, she was still sore down to her bones. Of course he was tired, of course he was frustrated. She was hoping that was all it was, but –

But the truth was, even if he made a full recovery, physically _and_ psychologically, his days as an agent might be over.

And speaking of agents who might be permanently demoted . . .

"The majority of the intelligence community is aware that Luka Morrow was actually a US agent, and that we executed an operation to flush out the mole at the UN as part of our investigations into the theft at Camp Bondsteel last year." Matty tapped the tablet, and a few familiar faces appeared up on the display in the War Room. Harlan Wolff was among them. "However, Oversight and the State Department are well aware that Mac allowed himself to be compromised."

". . . Matty . . ." It was much deeper. Almost a warning growl. She didn't look back at Jack, but she shook her head.

"Oversight is still waiting to see how much Mac recovers before they make a recommendation. As for you, your suspension is officially suspended. You'll be flying to DC with me to testify in front of the panel on the German side of the operation." She finally turned to face him. "You're going to say exactly what I tell you to, and nothing more. When we get back, you'll be riding a desk."

All the joviality had drained from his face, but his voice was strangely mild when he replied. "You benching me?" Then he seemed to remember he was still in a sling. "Guess I ain't field ready just yet."

"You don't say," she drawled. "I need you to vet some candidates."

Still, the Jack Dalton anger she expected didn't come. "You approve my two new tac positions? I already got a few folks in mind." When she didn't rise to the bait, his eyes hooded a little. "We can bring Carter in temporarily to bolster the team, keep Riles and Boze safe til Mac gets back."

"I mean someone longer term," she corrected flatly. "Jack, this was Mac's team, and he was team lead for a reason. You know his capabilities better than anyone. We need someone like him in place -"

"There _is_ no one like him," Jack interrupted sharply.

She let her eyes flash a little. This was not an argument they could afford. "I know that. It may take two or even three people to bring the same skill set, but we need it. No, Jack," she snapped, raising a hand when he stood. "How long do you think it's going to take him to get through physical therapy and back to field readiness? Best case, eight months? Ten? I'd _love_ to tell the dirtbags of the world that they need to take a few months off, but you and I both know that's not going to happen."

She softened her voice a little. "You're a man down and that gap _has_ to be filled before I can send you out again. There will be twenty candidates on your desk when we get back from DC. I expect you to select at least one of them."

Jack was clenching his jaw – never a good sign. But he didn't raise his voice, when he finally found it. "Or what? You'll bench the whole team?" He gestured at the glass wall. "What the hell kinda message is that supposed to send, Matty? Huh? To Boze, to Riley – hell, to Mac! Hey, don't bother healin' up, brother, we got us a new draft pick?"

She frowned up at him. "No, Jack, it sends the message that the bad guys are still out there and there's still work to do. If one of your old special ops teammates got taken out, you'd put in a ringer until your man recovered or bowed out –"

"Matty, it ain't like he's damn Marine! You can't just swap the next twenty-something MIT grad into place and tell 'em to fall in!"

"I know that," she shot back. "He is _irreplaceable_ , Jack. I've never met anyone else that can do what he does the way that he does it. But he doesn't have to do it _here_. He doesn't have to do it _like this_." She waited a beat for that sink in, but didn't drop her intensity for a moment. "He came as close as a human being can possibly come to death and still survive it. Forget about whether he's physically or mentally able to recertify, or even if Oversight will let him. He may not _want_ to come back."

Jack stared at her like she'd sprouted another head. "So you're gonna take away the _option_?!"

"No! I'm _giving_ him another one! There are some things you don't bounce back from, Jack! This might be one of them. And even if it isn't, maybe it _should_ be."

So much for not arguing.

She turned and stalked over to the glass, frosting it before any of the analysts noticed that Jack's face was getting red. Once it was done, she took a breath, more to give him the time than for herself.

"Jack," she eventually tried, gently. "I'm trying to keep the team together. If that's not going to work, you need to tell me now."

"What team?" he snapped. "It was always Mac's team. If he ain't welcome back –" Then he stopped himself, and she heard him inhale sharply. She didn't turn, didn't move. She let him work through it.

Because it was clear that he hadn't, hadn't even thought about the possibility that after this, Mac might not want to come back. Even if he could.

He'd had his run-ins with death before, they all had, but this was different. This wasn't just a broken body. This was potentially something much more valuable, permanently lost. He could use his brain to heal or compensate for physical damage, but cognitive? Even if he was wholly intact, had all his memories and all his abilities –

Was stopping someone like Aydin, _that way_ , worth what he had risked? When he could also save the world from Ops, or a lab, or one of a thousand ways she couldn't even think of?

Even if he was capable and he _wanted_ to come back, was it the right call? To risk someone like him in the field the way she had?

"It's way too soon to speculate on whether or not Mac's coming back," she told the glass wall in front of her. "But I can tell you that right now, I need you, Riley, and Bozer out there. They're looking to you, Jack. Do you want to keep them together, or not?"

Behind her, there was a thick silence. When it was finally broken, his voice was bitter.

"It's Mac's team, and Mac's decision. We ain't gonna make it without him."

-M-

By the time she waved her badge at the door, her iPhone chirped to let her know that a seizure was imminent. Just going by the scene in the room, she would have said it had already started.

Alec was on the back wall, preparing a muscle relaxant, and Wanda was at the bed, on the patient's left side. MacGyver had his eyes open, but they were rolling too much for him to be focused on anything. He was clutching the sides of the mattress like he thought he was going to fall off, and every inhalation was sharp and urgent. Wanda had put a hand on his shoulder, but she wasn't trying to restrain him, not yet. Her voice was soothing but firm.

"-know, I know, handsome, but we're gonna get you through this. Does it hurt? Blink twice if it does."

Dr. Parsons wasted no time in approaching his bed, only glancing at the alert flashing on the headboard above him. It wasn't really that unusual for epileptic patients to feel an oncoming seizure before a scalp-mounted sensor could detect it. That ability to predict a seizure was usually a talent of people with a great deal of experience, however, which he didn't have. He was only in the low teens of total lifetime seizures, and more than half those had occurred when he was asleep.

So maybe this one was different.

The brainwave pattern analysis would have to wait, and she basically ignored the headboard, putting a firm hand on MacGyver's right shoulder. He flinched.

Still with them, at least for another few seconds.

Damn.

Wanda glanced at her over the patient, then gave her the barest shake of her head. He hadn't answered her question.

"Specialist!" Parsons snapped, and just like it had the very first time he'd woken, his head rolled in her direction. But not his eyes. They were twitching back and forth, he was far too dizzy to look at her.

"Does your head hurt? Give me two blinks if it does."

He exhaled, hard, an attempt to vocalize. Then his eyes rolled back, and the seizure started in earnest.

Wanda slapped the ventilator panel, preemptively silencing the blockage alarm, and put her hands on his wrists as his arms curled up to his chest in the classic tonic seizure position. All they needed to do was prevent his fingers from hooking his chest bandage or his lines. Unless this seizure went clonic on them, he'd be conscious again in about a minute.

Which was another problem. MacGyver tended to respond _very_ poorly to seizures when he was conscious for the onset. A panic reaction was almost guaranteed. A mere week ago, panic was something they could deal with pretty easily, because he was mostly paralyzed. That was no longer the case.

Alec appeared at her elbow and she accepted the syringe and pushed the contents. Wanda was already counting it down.

"He was real upset this time," the nurse told them, her voice normal. A little worried, even. "I think he mighta felt this one coming for a while before he paged us."

Simone looked up, surprised. "He paged you?"

"Sure did. A solid minute before the sensors picked it up." Wanda's eyes were on the clock. "Want him down in Imaging?"

The shoulder under her hand wasn't relaxing, and Simone watched him closely for any signs this seizure was headed into grand mal territory. "Not just yet. Let's see what he can tell us when he comes back." He was forty-nine hours out from his last one, and she'd actually been holding out hope it _had_ been the last. As his brainstem started successfully handling more and more traffic from his spine, the seizures should definitely be tapering off. For his sake, she hoped this was just more of the same.

"Don't go backsliding on me now, Angus," she murmured to him. "Alec, stand by just in case we need to sedate him."

Wanda kept one hand on his left wrist, keeping it from his chest dressing, while she cranked the ventilator volume down in preparation for the patient's first post-seizure breath.

"Thirty seconds," she warned them, and Simone took MacGyver's right hand. His last five seizures had been in the vicinity of forty seconds, right in line with a classically presenting brain stem fart, and the coming out was always worse than the going in. She didn't want him to feel restrained when he came to, but they needed to control his arms until he was fully alert and aware.

He shuddered a little as the muscle relaxants took hold, then the seizure released him with a deep sigh. His body relaxed, for just a split second, and then he reflexively inhaled.

She felt the exact moment that consciousness returned; his hand twitched, then clenched, and she held him firmly as he instinctively tried to pull it towards his chest and his throat. He gasped, then tried to jerk his hand free. On his other side, she saw him try the same thing on Wanda. They didn't let him.

MacGyver's eyes flew open as he gasped again, focusing without the slightest indication of dizziness on Wanda. She smiled at him, but his gaze didn't stay on her long enough to register it. Instead he frantically searched the room, finding Dr. Parsons holding his other hand. Simone kept her expression calm, and let Nurse Wanda take the lead.

"Easy, handsome, we gotcha. You're okay," the nurse crooned, stroking the back of his left hand. "You had a seizure, but it's over now. It's okay. Just breathe, you just breathe easy for a minute."

He stared at her for a long second, still trying to gulp air off the ventilator. Then he let his partially raised head fall back onto his pillow, squeezed his eyes shut, and stopped trying to pull away so frantically. Simone was just about to let him go when he suddenly arched his back and twisted his wrists, tearing his right hand from hers. It went straight to the ventilator tube.

She got hold of his wrist again before he was able to do more than grasp it, and he nearly pulled Wanda onto the bed as he fought with them. He was strong, stronger than he should have been after the muscle relaxants, and Parsons turned her head to mutter over her shoulder.

"Alec, give me thirty milligrams of lacosamide and point twenty-five of Klonopin." Then she turned back to the patient. "MacGyver, _stop_. You're okay. You can breathe. Relax."

The sheer quantity of adrenaline in his system was overpowering the relaxants.

The ventilator sent off a blockage alarm, which she couldn't quite figure out because he was still pulling quite a bit of volume off it. She managed to pry his claw-like fingers off the tube before he did more than yank the tape loose, and Wanda was completely occupied with trying to keep his left arm – his stronger arm – under control without hurting him. He actually managed to raise his left knee, trying to use his weight as leverage, but he just didn't quite have it.

And he knew it. Every one of those exhales was meant to be a shout. He was screaming.

"MacGyver!" she called, but his eyes were screwed shut, and as soon as Wanda had muscled his left arm back to the bed she was able to pin it there with one hand, and hit the vent alarm with the other – the noise was only adding to the chaos. Simone jerked her chin at his infusion pump, and Wanda used the pad to administer a dose of dilaudid.

Pain could certainly explain the uncharacteristically violent reaction. And if it _was_ pain, they needed to know where it was, and they needed to know fast.

Alec came up behind Wanda, this time, administering the drugs she'd asked for, and the second he felt it all hit his bloodstream, MacGyver switched tactics. He held his breath, causing the vent to start screaming again and Wanda to take one of her hands off him to hit the alarm. Simone felt his right arm tense under her fingers and she tightened her grip in preparation, but that was exactly what he wanted. Now firmly pinned on his right side, he finally had the leverage he needed to twist his left wrist free.

This time he didn't go for the ventilator. He went for his central line.

"Nope," Parsons snapped, releasing his right arm only to pin it beneath her hip as she literally sat on him, and captured his left hand _just_ shy of the line. If he got hold of it and ripped it out far enough, tore his jugular or aorta –

She felt his body squirming weakly beneath her, and she knew the added weight was only making it harder for him to breathe, but she didn't lean up off him until Wanda had regained control of his left arm. This time the nurse didn't try to pin him, she instead held his hand palm to palm, so that he could move the arm a little, but couldn't grasp anything, and he couldn't repeat his leverage trick. Simone did the same, ignoring him as he first tried to crush her hand, then dig his fingernails into the back of it. They'd kept his nails clipped since the seizures started, the latex gloves would protect her from any punctures.

This wasn't panic. This was conscious, calculated movement. He knew exactly what he was doing.

"MacGyver, _stop_. If you tear out that line it will _kill you_. Do you understand?"

He didn't respond, didn't show them that he was listening at all, and she and Wanda exchanged a grim look. Alec was at the patient's legs, ready to discourage any further movement, and he watched her expectantly. Simone frowned, then shook her head and silently indicated that Alec should leave. MacGyver had never been truly comfortable with his presence, and it certainly wasn't going to help him calm down now.

She'd give him another few minutes to try to get hold of himself. If he didn't, they'd have to sedate him like they meant it.

His eyes remained squeezed shut, leaking involuntarily, but the drugs started doing their job, and the second hit of muscle relaxants rapidly sapped his strength. He shook his head weakly, still trying to get away from the ventilation tube, and his exhales were coming in a short, sharp rhythm that almost sounded like coughing. If he didn't stop, he'd hyperventilate.

The behavior finally clicked.

"Okay! Okay, MacGyver. We'll help. Just give me a second." Still holding his left hand firmly, she reached over and smoothly disconnected the ventilator tube from the machine, one-handed. Wanda shifted, almost like she was going to stop her.

"Doctor –"

"He can't tolerate the vent right now." The classic avoidance reactions, the urgency of his movements - even just the pressure of the ventilator was too much for him to handle. Tonic seizures frequently came with intense emotions, and this one was apparently no exception. MacGyver was completely and totally overwhelmed - beyond task saturation. He just couldn't cope with the stimulus coming in.

And he'd hated the damn ventilator since the moment he'd arrived. They had officially reached the end of his ability to deal with it.

The second the ventilator was disconnected, he gasped, and even though he was still breathing through the tube in his throat, this time the air flow and volume were wholly controlled by his own lungs and his own diaphragm. He held it a second, then tried to curl his arms towards his chest – which they didn't let him do – and he repeated the same sharp, rhythmic exhales.

That was when Simone realized the tears streaming down his face weren't involuntary. He wasn't coughing.

Between the relaxants and the dilaudid, they couldn't keep him off the ventilator long before it would legitimately be hard for him to breathe on his own. Simone nodded her head towards the machine. "Grab the oxygen line off that, let's help him out a little." She turned back to her patient. "Take it easy, Nurse Wanda's going to help you breathe easier. She's not hooking it all back up just yet."

He turned his head away from Wanda as he felt someone touching the tube, but he couldn't stop her, and all the nurse did was place the line into the port on the side typically used for a nebulizer. It would feed him oxygen, but not so much that the volume of gas would feel like forced inflation. He gasped in a breath, again held it, and let it out in a long exhale that probably would have been a moan, had he been able to pass the air over his vocal chords. It broke off back into silent cries.

"There, it's done," Simone told him, pitching her voice to be quiet and reassuring, and she squeezed his hand firmly, hoping to distract him. "Breathe. Just breathe."

He shook his head again, whether denying her words or trying to shake off the oxygen tube she couldn't tell. Very soon, the drugs he'd already been given would fully suppress his physical ability to express himself. He would appear calm and compliant, but there was no telling what was going through his head right now. Pulling the tube she could see – but going for that central line was a clear message that he knew good and well that was how medicine was getting into his system, and he didn't want any more of it. Regardless of the consequences.

He was done. Done with the ventilator, done with being treated, done with being in this room. Possibly done with living, at least temporarily. They couldn't leave him unsupervised until he had returned to a less overwhelmed state, and that was simply not likely to happen anytime soon.

Simone couldn't see a way to avoid sedating him at this point. The only alternative was physical restraints, and that would only make things worse.

"Just breathe," she repeated softly, rubbing the back of his hand. Trying to give him some sensation to ground him. "I hear you. I hear you, MacGyver. We've got to change this situation, and we will. It's over. This part's over now."

Wanda, ever intuitive, figured out exactly what she was thinking, and after patting the patient's left hand she set it down beside him, and then fully released him. He let the arm lay where it was. Right now raising it would have been a monumental effort, but Simone was quite sure that was not why he'd stilled.

"MacGyver," she tried again, but he didn't open his eyes. Didn't want to talk. Simone nodded, and Wanda silently withdrew to the back wall. Parsons kept his attention by stroking the back of his right hand.

"What you're feeling right now is a result of the seizure," she told him as his gasping started to taper off. "It's very common to feel intense sensations and emotions, but they will pass. You're okay. We'll talk about it when you wake up."

If anything, his eyes squeezed shut more tightly. His body was slowly sinking deeper and deeper into the mattress as the drugs forced him to relax, and his breathing had started to even out. But there was a very deliberate quality to it that let her know he was thinking about it, had to think about it. A few tears were still escaping his closed eyes. He wasn't any calmer than he'd been before. He was simply unable to show them.

Much as she hated to do it to him, before they fully sedated him, she needed another look at his eyes. Either way she was sending him for an MRI, but she needed to know if the dizziness had returned.

"You won't dream, and when you wake, you'll feel more like yourself."

The second threat of pharmaceutically induced sleep got a reaction. He did crack his eyes open, blue and somewhat dilated, but they were absolutely steady as he silently begged her not to.

Once she saw his pupils constrict evenly in reaction to the room light, she squeezed his hand again. "You won't dream, I promise," she repeated. "You'll wake up calm, and we'll talk. I'll explain everything that's happening to you, but right now you need to rest. Do you want me to re-attach the ventilator now, or after you fall asleep?"

He continued to weep, and once he saw Wanda reappear at his side, he turned the plaintive look on her. The nurse frowned in sympathy but still injected the contents into his central line. Neither of his hands twitched for it, but his next breath was a little unsteady.

Which answered the question. Parsons patted his hand again, then laid it down beside him, and he didn't move a muscle as she reached over and snapped the ventilator hose back onto the tube still protruding from his mouth. As soon as it was done, he gave up, and stopped fighting the drugs. He was out in under ten seconds.

There was a pause, then he took a breath, and the ventilator hissed and assisted him.

Wanda transferred the oxygen tube back to its place on the ventilator, her sympathetic frown still in place. "That was a bad one."

In more ways than one.

"You want him in wrist restraints after Imaging is done with him?"

Simone raised her eyes from his face to his headboard, where his stats – including brainwaves - were being displayed. There was no indication of any anomaly, his right arm had been weaker than his left but she didn't think that was due to stroke. His eyes were tracking fine, his pupils responded evenly. It was nothing more than the seizure amplifying emotions he was already feeling.

"No," she finally said. "Then he'll just wait until restraints are released for PT or examination. We can't wrestle him into submission, and I'm not about to repeat the trauma he's already suffered." The chest wound aside, he clearly had well-repaired scarring around his wrists, and it didn't take a dermatologist or a trauma surgeon to deduce what might have caused them.

Wanda whistled, then prepped the gurney for its impending trip down the hall. "Gonna try to talk him out of it?"

"Any anti-depressant fast-acting enough to make a difference in a few hours will come with side effects that he's not going to tolerate any better." She didn't want to give a patient recovering from neurogenic shock a drug that was going to make it feel like he was covered in crawling insects. Even if they did play nicely with seizure medications and sedatives.

But they couldn't just keep knocking him out when he got upset, either. "He's not suicidal, at least not yet. Let's see where his head is when he comes back around." She glanced at her watch. "Keep him out for eight hours. That'll give me time to hang out with Mannuel. After all, it's –"

"Strawberry smoothie day," the nurse finished, taking her phone from her scrubs and tapping out the order to Imaging. "I'll make sure handsome here gets his beauty rest."

Parsons left the patient room, headed back to her office, and ignored her desk phone when the inevitable call – California area code – came in. The pertinent information could be exchanged by email, and frankly, she wanted the record. These people needed to stop freaking out every time their agent had a bad day.

Not five minutes after that phone call, there was a quiet knock on her office door, and the tall shadow on the other side simply let himself in.

Simone threw up her hands. "For fuck's sake, if you don't like the way I'm treating him, transfer him to your own ward!"

Her boss's lips turned up in a little self-deprecating smile, and he closed the glass door behind him, choosing to sit on the couch instead of at her desk. He didn't grab a toy, and he didn't indicate that he expected her to join him. Which she wasn't planning on doing.

She wasn't the patient here.

"You read his record," he announced to the room at large. It wasn't a question.

Simone huffed but didn't deny it. As soon as Angus MacGyver had demonstrated his higher functions were at least partially intact, she'd had no choice. "Is there something I can do for you?"

He leveled a long look at her. "Wanda's getting worried."

Frankly, after the drama that had just unfolded in MacGyver's room, she was surprised it wasn't both of her nurses that had run to Dr. Collins. "The patient is unremarkable and recovering as expected. This is the first time he's shown aggressive behavior, and it was solely defensive. He's had only basic hand to hand training, his title may have been agent but he's a glorified field lab tech. I'm adjusting the treatment accordingly to ensure a positive outcome. It's called applying lessons learned."

Seth waved a dismissive hand. "If he was just a three hundred pound assassin, Wanda wouldn't have batted an eye. This isn't about one violent reaction. And he's hardly unremarkable." Seth threw his arm across the back of the couch, getting comfortable. "As for lessons learned, you didn't make a mistake with your previous patient, Mone. You treated him for his underlying condition and rehabilitated him to his best possible outcome."

There was a lot left unsaid in that statement. It was nearly verbatim what he'd written in the review, which meant it was practiced. Those were words he'd thought about long and hard before he'd said them, four years ago, and they'd wedged themselves into his brain as his automatic response.

"Angus isn't Howard," she told him bluntly, parroting back his words from a week ago. "I don't know what Wanda told you, but the patient was responding to –"

"He's scared, Simone," the other doctor cut her off. "And you're still slow-walking him because you're afraid of the same thing he is. That he's _almost_ fine. That he's still more intelligent than average. That he may even still be a genius, and that he's the only one capable of noticing the difference. And that he's not going to tell you about it, you or anyone else."

"He won't," she retorted. "The reason he just had a meltdown is that he's suppressing every emotion he can. He's not our first MENSA member, Seth. He will expect himself to perform at his previous best no matter what I tell him, and no matter what he himself understands of cognitive testing in these conditions." MacGyver would fault himself for every wrong answer, every inability to calculate at his former best speed and ease, without taking into consideration he was still heavily drugged and his brain was spending most of its computing cycles on interpreting new neural pathways and information. His higher functions could be completely intact, but they were currently preoccupied with operational concerns.

He wasn't going to accept that. He would see temporary failure as permanent.

"I agree," Dr. Collins said blandly. "So what's the plan? Put him in a coma for another month?"

She gave him a look. "Don't think I haven't considered it." It wouldn't do much good. He'd still have a weaning period off the ventilator, and his brain would be arguably more sluggish than it already was, at least for the first few days.

Seth idly tapped the back of the couch and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Simone was unmoved. "You're just dying to consult, aren't you."

He shook his head. "He's going to jump to conclusions either way. He's going to hide things either way. You already know that. What are you going to do about it?"

And damned if that wasn't exactly the right question. What was she going to do about it.

Nothing. There was nothing _to_ do about it. His serotonin levels had to be rock bottom, but anti-depressants would compound the long-term issues. Restraints were only a temporary solution. If he didn't want to live with his new reality, once he was discharged his safety was up to his support team. Who, even if she warned them, wouldn't watch him closely enough to stop him once he made up his mind.

She was well aware of how she'd failed Howard Garcia. That there was very little she could have done to stop that outcome, besides what she was doing now. Forcing him to slow down. Forcing him to show her what he was feeling, what he was thinking. Finding the broken pieces.

And that was also Seth's point. Even if she had forced Howard to admit his thoughts, even if she'd found the disconnect in his brain that had led him to put his family in that car, or to look at a guardrail and act on impulse – that impulse would have to be identified and controlled over a period of years. Decades. Maybe his entire life. She didn't have the luxury of staying with patients in that way. She'd told Howard's family and friends, his doctors what to watch out for, and every one of them had missed the signs. If there had even been signs to see. And if Angus was still half the man that was described in his medical records, he already had impulse issues. He was already an expert at compartmentalizing emotional trauma. Something as simple as forgetting to take his meds, or believing he no longer needed them, would be all it would take.

But Angus _wasn't_ Howard. He was smarter, or at least he had been before. He was arguably more resourceful. He had a different past, different life experiences, different context. How to medically approach assessing his brain aside, she needed to take a step back. She had a patient in a clinical depression, who was already spiraling, for whom traditional treatments were non-optimal, and who wouldn't be a quick fix.

Step one was easy. Stop the spiral. Deliberately change the routine, give him some distraction and some relief. Exposure to exercise and therapy animals was the quickest way to restore serotonin levels naturally. Even with the complication of the ventilator, that was a no brainer.

Step two was the hard part. She had to convince Angus that it was his idea to be optimistic about any changes he might be experiencing. He'd already proven that he was capable of simple problem solving – like the connection between drinking a milkshake and the ventilator. He appeared to understand language at a high school level if not better. He was able to interact with his environment, and with other humans. She could gear his first set of tests towards characteristics she was reasonably confident would still score well, and give him a few quick wins. The only problem with that was that it didn't give either of them the data they needed, and depending on how intact and aware he really was, he'd see immediately what she was doing.

What else. He was a people pleaser. His friends wouldn't adhere to her therapy if asked, she'd have to manipulate them a little, but maybe they were a more valuable resource than she'd initially considered. At the very least, she could continue using them while Angus was still in her care.

But after that, the longer term . . . it was still too early to call. Walking leisurely over the edge of the cliff, or driving over it at sixty miles an hour, the result was the same. The only variable in her control was when that journey would start. Too soon, and things would seem worse than they actually were. Too late, and she wouldn't be there to pick up the pieces. There was no avoiding the proverbial cliff. All she could do was make sure he was wearing a parachute that he knew how to use -

A parachute.

The epiphany must have been a visible one, because her boss spread his hands. "There you go," he said, and then he stood up and stretched. "I keep forgetting how comfortable this couch is."

Parsons snorted, but her right hand – and most of her attention – was now on her tablet, making notes. ". . . you're going to book this time against my patient, aren't you."

His grin was almost cheeky. "I knew you'd get there. Let me know how it goes." He headed for the door, but paused with his hand on the knob. "IT's already approved the Phoenix Foundation specs. They'll be pleased to hear the prognosis is continuing to improve."

For the umpteenth time, she was truly impressed with Dr. Seth Collins' ability to consistently get what he wanted by not actually asking for it. She'd never worked with anyone else, trained psychologist or otherwise, who was able to use silence so eloquently. "You sure you don't want him in your wing? I'd hate to steal your glory."

Seth's smirk was the last thing out the door. "He's getting the very best treatment right where he is."

-M-

Despite the fact she knew he hadn't been dreaming, Patient Five woke up with the same startle response he always had.

The second thing he did was close his right hand around the object that had been placed in it. His hacky sack.

She gave him plenty of time to get his bearings. Things were different, after all. The lighting was an accurate reflection of the hour, which was seven pm. Twilight. He hadn't experienced anything darker than thunderstorms since he'd arrived. Also, she was seated beside him, rather than standing. The stool was high enough that he could see her easily without having to contort his neck, but his bed had also been lowered to facilitate communication.

She wanted them both to be nice and comfortable for this.

Simone saw him notice her, then pretend not to. But once he'd checked out the whole room, and appreciated the change in perspective, as slight as it was, she got his eyes again. Steady, no dizziness. All his vitals said the same.

He was calm. Outside of that initial panic, he was coming back down to his usual baseline.

Simone regarded him. "Good evening," she told him, giving him another cue about time. "How do you feel? Do you have any pain?"

He blinked, though she wasn't sure it was to communicate a 'no.' His next breath on the ventilator was deeper.

"You had a seizure, earlier today. Do you remember?"

He blinked twice, but his vitals stayed rock steady. The memory didn't seem to cause him significant anxiety. That could very well have been a residual effect of the Klonopin, artificially calming him. She made a mental note and continued.

"Would you like me to disconnect the ventilator for a little while?"

He stared at her for a second, as if confused, but then blinked twice. He held himself still as she paused the ventilator, then disconnected it from the tube still in his mouth. She then transferred the oxygen line back to the nebulizer port, just as Wanda had done before. As soon as she was done, he took a deep breath, held it as he had earlier, then exhaled. It didn't sound difficult or urgent.

He never took his eyes off her.

Parsons settled back down on the stool. "I'll be honest with you, MacGyver, I don't think you're ready to be weaned off the ventilator just yet. However, it appears you don't agree, so we're going to try it your way. You'll have three fifteen minute sessions a day, like this. Oxygen supplemented, but under your own horsepower. The rest of the time the ventilator will be on assistive mode. If you can keep your blood gases up, and there's no harm to your lung, we'll continue. Can you live with that?"

MacGyver's eyes flicked to the right as he thought about it, then back to her. Accessing the creative centers of his brain. But then he gave her two quick blinks.

She inclined her head. "Okay." She made a note on her tablet that was wholly for show, then set it down on his bed, in range of his left hand. He didn't go for it, but he was regularly squeezing the hacky sack in his right hand.

"I told you that when you woke up, I'd explain what was happening to you. Do you remember?"

The yes was much faster this time.

"I can't tell you everything, because I need to know how much you remember on your own, without being coached." She gave him a serious look. "I suspect you're not very happy about that, but considering you're withholding at least that much from me, I'd say we're about even."

His eyes hooded a little, and he started playing his metronome game with his own breathing. Giving nothing away.

She almost smiled.

"The seizures you're experiencing are scary and uncomfortable, but they aren't harmful, and they don't mean that there's anything permanently wrong. This is _temporary_. They're a byproduct of the neurogenic shock, and that shock is abating every day-"

MacGyver rolled his head a little to the right, away from her, and stared at some point on his privacy curtain.

Simone trailed off. "Am I boring you?"

He stared resolutely at the curtain.

So this was a deliberate communication. He was telling her that he didn't want to listen to what she was saying.

Okay. She could work with that. "MacGyver, I don't think you're fully appreciating how far you've come, and how sick you were. Allow me to spell it out for you." She shifted on the stool, getting more comfortable, and while he didn't turn his head towards her, his eyes shifted to a new point on the curtain, a little closer to her. Watching her in his peripheral vision.

Good.

"You were in a coma for two weeks. You experienced multiple organ dysfunction. Your heart and your liver have recovered but your kidneys and lung are still healing. You very nearly died of sepsis, let alone from complications from that chest wound. Your immune system is still only operating at about eighty percent. The fact that you are alive to glare at that curtain is nothing short of _remarkable_."

The glare didn't waver. None of that was a surprise to him – or he was so fed up with her and his situation that he didn't care.

"I don't know how frustrating this is for you. I can't, not until you can tell me. But I can tell _you_ that there is a trail of physicians, of nurses, of specialists, of _agents_ , who have done everything they possibly can to save you. To get you to this point. And I know that you don't want to throw away all their efforts."

Just as she expected, his eyes shot back to her, and he even turned his head a little in her direction to stare at her. It wasn't quite a flinch; there was more anger in it than guilt.

"The seizure today didn't harm you – but your reaction to it very well could have," she continued bluntly. "So here's the deal. You're going to give me forty-eight hours." She gestured to the wall across from him, and his eyes slid to it, picking out the clock she'd had installed. "You're going to have to put up with the ventilator, with painkillers, with anti-seizure medication, and with tests for forty-eight more hours. At the end of that –" and his eyes cut back to her, still angry, "your friends will have installed their communication device, and configured it for you. In forty-eight hours, you'll have a voice. But until then, I _need_ your cooperation. Can you give me that time?"

He stared at her, without blinking, but this time it wasn't a glare. There was something questioning in it.

"Do you want me to elaborate?"

Two quick blinks.

"The Phoenix Foundation has come up with a way for you to control a device that will increase the sophistication of your responses. We'll be done with the yes no bullshit. You'll be able to answer multiple choice questions, there will be an array of spoken content that you can access to tell us exactly how you're feeling and what you're thinking." She paused. "Apparently there has been some debate about whether the device will sound like Stephen Hawking."

His eyes flickered, as if he'd suppressed a blink.

"Do you remember the two men who came to visit you, some time ago?"

Two quick blinks.

"I believe they'll be arriving with the device sometime tomorrow evening." She tilted her head to indicate the clock. "The clock will stay, as long as having it there doesn't cause you any stress. I don't need you worrying about the time along with everything else."

He glanced at it again, seeming to study it in detail. It was a basic analog clock, battery powered, no wifi. She could take it off the wall and mess with it whenever she wanted, but unless he spent every waking moment watching it she was willing to leave it alone, and let him get a grip on time again. Give him a little more illusion of control.

"I need you to hear me, MacGyver. The refusal of medication stops. I believe at least a third of your seizures have been triggered by mid-level pain overwhelming your still shocked spinal column. I'm not talking about sedation," she spoke over his suddenly alarmed look. "There's a pretty broad range between being in constant pain, or drugged into a stupor. Let us help you get more comfortable. This is a marathon, not a sprint. You're going to be here a while longer, even after you're walking and talking." She leaned forward, making sure she had his complete attention.

"And you _will_ be walking and talking. This situation is _not permanent_. I'm going to let you handle the ventilator, and you're going to let me handle the pain. In two days, whether I think you're ready or not, we'll be able to begin testing your memory. Agreed?"

In truth, they were going to be testing a lot more than just his memory. But that was all she was willing to tell him. If he remembered as much as he seemed to, he'd assume this was all leading up to one big interrogation. What he remembered of the situation that had put him here in the first place. Under normal circumstances, with an agent who couldn't speak or write, any intelligence agency worth their salt would be pulling out their hair waiting for him to heal up enough to tell them what the hell happened. As long as she reinforced that narrative, he was less likely to assume she was worried about the rest of his brain.

And there was some kind of calculation going on behind his eyes. He was thinking about something, hard, and his eyes turned slightly inward with the effort of it. Then he focused back on her, and gave her two blinks.

Yes.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Oh really? So – are you in pain right now?"

The look narrowed into a glare, but she got one blink. No.

That was potentially legit. They'd already given him this hour's dose of dilaudid, and he _had_ been sleeping.

"Do you feel weird?"

The glare softened a little, and she got two blinks. Yes.

"Weird like you're going to have another seizure?"

An immediate no.

"Uncomfortable weird?"

Another no.

"Emotionally weird?"

Somewhat surprisingly, he gave her a yes.

Good enough. "Okay. That's probably the drugs from earlier. Keep an eye on that, and if it changes in a way that worries you, let me know." She paused and waited for acknowledgement, which he finally gave her in the form of two blinks.

"We're going to up the amount of nutrition you're getting, now that you're regaining some of your strength. That should settle any stomach issues you're having. But the next time you even _suspect_ that a seizure is coming on, you page one of us immediately. We may be able to head it off with pain management. Understood?"

This time, his agreement was quick and sincere. Whether he was being artificially calmed with medication or not, he also clearly did not want a repeat of earlier in the day.

She nodded, then reached over and picked up her tablet. "By the way, did you notice earlier that you moved your left leg?"

He didn't indicate that he had one way or another, but she saw the blanket over his left toes twitch, ever so slightly. Trying to bend his toes.

"I know that it's sometimes hard for you to tell, but you are making measurable progress every day. Don't give up on me now, MacGyver. We _are_ going to get you through this."

He averted his eyes, and she saw an unreadable expression cross his face. She didn't push it, but she did pat him on the left leg as she stood, and when he blinked, she was reasonably sure that he'd felt it – or at least felt something.

"Nurse Wanda will be by in a few minutes to re-attach your ventilator, and to make sure you have everything you need. I know you just woke up, but don't be surprised if you sleep through the night. You had a hell of a day today."

She recorded his vitals, in exactly the same order that Wanda always did, then gave him another nod, walked around the privacy curtain, and opened the door. She let it close without going through it, remaining still and silent, and watched her tablet, which was showing her the room cameras.

Moment of truth.

MacGyver seemed to listen for a moment, as if trying to decide if he was really alone. He picked up his left arm, bringing it up towards his chest, and she forced herself to remain still. But all he did with it was place it over his stomach, and then he dragged his right arm up, and passed the hacky sack to his left. Back and forth, to the same rhythm as his breaths.

When Wanda badged into the room a few minutes later, Simone stole out as the door was closing, still watching the tablet. The patient didn't seem shy or embarrassed with her, either, and when she saw him blink in response to a question, Simone finally allowed herself to relax. Just a little.

-M-

Once again Mac's following the two steps forward, one step back approach. Healing is much harder than it looks, and he hit his limit. Fortunately, Simone was able to give him something to look forward to, and next chapter, we will finally get to see what Mac can do!

Also, my loyal and talented beta reader – who has requested to be the Beta Reader Who Shall Not Be Named - is one hundred percent responsible for Simone's epiphany regarding how to treat Mac. And she doesn't know it (unless she reads this Author's Note). Had she not inspired that idea, this chapter would not be posted tonight. You all owe her a beer.


	31. Chapter 31

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

SPECIAL NOTE **:** I am a total idiot and forgot to link the awesome fanart that **NYWCgirl** did for Turkey Day – go check it out under her name at AO3, under Works, called **Comfort Kitten**. It's all kinds of ridiculously adorbz.

-M-

Wanda fixed him with an expectant look, and he stared back obstinately.

"You know today's going to be a big day, right?"

Angus took a deep breath – sans ventilation support – and exhaled, a clear demonstration that he was quite able to move a respectable volume of air all by himself, thank you very much.

She started to slowly shake her head. "I read up on today's protocols, handsome. Three fifteen minute sessions. Not one forty-five minute one."

He had the gall to double blink at her, and Wanda burst out laughing. He might as well have said, ' _yuh-huh_.' "Oh, it's gonna be that kinda day, huh?" She took the sting out of the words – and reassured him that she was going to let him get away with it, and not hook the ventilator up just yet – by fussing with his hair, which was once again getting entangled in his scalp-mounted sensors. The dry shampoo had done what it could, but there was only so much oil and sweat it could soak up, and his hair had honestly not been properly cleaned since he'd arrived.

"Well, I am hardly going to let you look like this when your friends come to visit," she murmured, almost to herself, and his willful look softened a little in confusion. He didn't have a mirror, after all, and she wasn't about to give him one.

"I'll be right back, handsome," she told him, and headed off to get her supplies. In less than five minutes she returned with her cart, and in that time, his blood oxygen never dipped below a hundred percent. Dr. Mone had been clear – the moment he couldn't keep it about ninety-five, the ventilator went back on. The moment she saw any fresh blood in his chest drain, the ventilator went back on. But neither of those criteria were met, and frankly, it was much easier to shampoo a patient's hair when there wasn't a big blue hose in the way.

"I'm going to have to lay you back flat, okay?" At his double blink, she did so, watching his eyes closely for any signs of dizziness. There were none, he kept watching her steadily as she placed the bucket beside the bed, then lowered the railing.

"We're going to change your sheets, too, handsome," she prepped him, but he didn't seem upset by the prospect. He might be insisting on more time off the vent, but there was nothing he could say about the resumed pain management regiment, because it was happening automatically and he couldn't reach the machine to turn it off. He hadn't made a move for any of them, nor had he gone for either the ventilation tube or his central line since the seizure. Since they now knew he could, and he was quite well aware of it, she was happy to let him cheat a little with his off-vent time if it meant he behaved himself the rest of the day.

He made no complaint as she lifted him to tuck his pillow behind his shoulders, gently easing his neck into a more extended position, and tucked a folded, warmed bath towel underneath to support it. It couldn't have felt good to his throat, but he gave no indication of discomfort, and she slid the rubber mat into place. Once the hose running off the mat's trough was stuffed into the bucket and she'd checked to ensure drainage was working, Wanda started plucking his scalp sensors off.

MacGyver refused to close his eyes, seeming content to stare at the ceiling as she worked. He wasn't watching his screen; near as she could tell, he wasn't watching anything. "It's okay to take a nap, you know," she told him, gently using her gloved-covered nails to work the adhesive off his skin.

His unfocused eyes flicked to her, but then back to the ceiling. He blinked, but she didn't think he was trying to tell her anything with it. He just didn't want to close them.

She gave him a little sigh, then counted the sensors she'd collected in the plastic bin, making sure she had them all. "Nightmares?"

He didn't respond, and she folded a washcloth and laid it across his forehead. He looked up at her again as she did so, almost consideringly, but as soon as he saw that he had her eyes, his own skittered away.

Wanda tsked and slowly poured warm water over his hair, letting it trickle through before she started working it in. He loved scalp massages, as hard as he tried to hide it, and true to form, despite his best efforts by the time she started applying the shampoo, his eyes were closed and his face was relaxed.

But he wasn't asleep. He was playing with his hacky sack, rotating it in his left hand.

"You know," and she smoothed his hair flat before working her fingers in, "You wouldn't be so tired if you weren't tryin' to bottle up all those feelings all the time."

This time she didn't look at his face, focusing on a blob of transparent adhesive that was embedded pretty deeply into his hair. "Your body needs to express those emotions for you to heal. It's a good thing. Not like you get points for being stoic, handsome. Not in this room."

He took a slightly deeper breath, letting it out in such a way as it made a little whistling sound. He'd been playing with that for the past twenty minutes or so, making the disconnected tube whistle by trying to change the position of his mouth and lips. The bite guard was still in, meaning he couldn't close his jaw, but he could close his lips for the first time in over a month, and she imagined moving them felt good.

"Don't you whistle at me," she admonished gently, running her nails down his scalp. "I'm serious. No one here is judgin' ya, handsome, or comparing you to anyone else. This is _your_ room, this is _your_ space to be weak in. This is your space to heal in. Body _and_ soul. You gotta let yourself feel." She emphasized this by raking her hands from the nape of his neck all the way to his forehead, laying his long bangs out across the folded washcloth, and dared to glance at his face.

His eyes were half-open. Watching her.

She nodded seriously at him. "You do what you gotta do to get better. Some people cry, some people throw things . . . but you can't just hang onto it, you gotta let it out. If you don't, I just don't know how you're ever gonna be able to sleep easy."

He looked away at that, and she let him, gathering all his hair first to the right side, then his left, then spiking it out in a soapy blond mohawk. Her words probably weren't comforting, but she knew her touch was, and he barely opened his eyes to give her permission to continue the bath once she'd rinsed his hair.

Even though he drowsed, he never fully fell asleep, and she watched his oxygen level start dipping down to ninety-eight. He'd catch up with a deeper breath every now and again, and she didn't want him to ever feel like breathing was even remotely difficult, so she made his bath a little shorter than she might have otherwise. Unfortunately there was no way to put him in a fresh gown and change the sheets without fully waking him, and despite the discomfort, he tried to help her as she rolled him, first to his right, then his left, and swapped the sheets around him.

Last but not least, she unwrapped his still-damp hair from the towel. He was once again alert, and indicated which direction he'd like it parted in. Once that was all done, she reattached his scalp monitors, and stepped back to take it all in.

He blinked up at her, studying her expression, and she beamed her approval. "You're lookin' good, handsome." He used the remote to lean himself back up as she gathered the dirty laundry and other supplies, and once she'd swapped his empty nutrition bag for a fresh one, she evaluated him. Still toying with the hacky sack, still ignoring his monitor. He was looking out the window, now, a million miles away, and the second she approached his left side – nearest the ventilator – his eyes cut to her with a single blink.

No.

In answer, she turned and looked pointedly at the clock. It had been nearly forty minutes, well past time. "You really want to tire yourself out this early in the day?"

He huffed, something that was much easier to do without the ventilator attached, and Wanda bobbed her eyebrows at him as the door clicked open. It was time for his second surprise. "I think you'll want to save some of that for your therapy today. You're not the only one on a schedule, you know."

He didn't fight her – exactly – as she re-attached the ventilator, but he didn't let it help much, either, by immediately inhaling so that it wouldn't automatically trigger when he wasn't ready. She let him – it wouldn't do to tell him to express his emotions only to discourage him when he actually did it. They got it all done just before Dr. Parsons came around the patient curtain with her left arm tucked close to her body.

"Good morning, MacGyver," she greeted her patient, and promptly set Metrodora on the bed. The kitten froze a moment, adjusting to the sudden change before she decided that she liked it, and gamboled fearlessly over to MacGyver's legs, climbing one without the slightest hesitation.

In response, he put the hacky sack on his stomach, and he hadn't even gotten his hand out of the way before she pounced. She wasn't heavy by any stretch, but he twitched with a sharp little exhale that would have been a grunt had he been able to vocalize it.

Metrodora didn't notice. She tackled the hacky sack and then flumped over sideways to dig her hind claws into it. She'd reached the age where her pure white coat was just starting to darken, with little hints of dusky fur near her ears and the tip of her tail, and both of those were flicking in every direction as MacGyver raised his right hand to keep her from rolling off his abdomen. He was leaned up just enough to be able to see her easily, and he took the opportunity to work his fingertips into her soft fur.

Simone watched them a moment more. "You may remember that Metrodora is a therapy animal in training. As part of her training, she's on a rotation including both familiar patients and new. Since you were the first patient she encountered, you're now part of that rotation."

It was pretty clear neither Dora nor MacGyver minded the arrangement, though he did look back up at the doctor, his eyes a little questioning. Parsons spread her hands.

"As of right now, I expect your visitors will be arriving sometime late afternoon. I don't want to tire you too much, so Nurse Wanda will come and get Metrodora in an hour, or when you page us, whichever comes first. After that, I suggest you get some rest. Between Metrodora here and your visitors, I think you'll get in plenty of physical therapy today." The doctor glanced pointedly at the clock on the wall. "Are you feeling any discomfort or pain in your chest or your lungs?"

His eyes cut to her, and Wanda widened hers a little in a classic 'uh-oh' expression and made a show of taking his vitals. Whatever his reply, Dr. Parsons didn't say anything, and when she glanced over again, he wasn't glaring at Simone like she thought he would be. Dora had gotten his attention again, and was dancing around the hacky sack, jumping every time she made his blanket twitch.

"Looks like someone has enough energy for the both of them," Wanda observed. "You just let me know when she gets to be too much, handsome."

She got a double blink out of him, and at a nod from Dr. Parsons she finished charting and made herself scarce. She'd already taken the cart back to the nursing station and restocked by the time the doctor breezed into the horseshoe-shaped station, having eschewed her slippers for a pair of violently pink sneakers she had no doubt purchased during the last Race for the Cure event. Wanda cleared her throat.

"You should be handin' out sunglasses if you're plannin' on wearin' those all day."

Simone sank onto one of the stools, glancing at her left foot as she did so. "I can't wear the slippers around Dora. She finds them extremely distracting."

"Does she now." Alec was on the opposite side of the station, doing his own charting, and his voice was dry.

Simone glanced at him, then accepted the tablet Wanda was offering her. "I could have dragged her all the way from my office attached to one of them, but then we'd have contaminated the entire hallway."

True.

"So you're saying you made that sacrifice for us."

"I did it for Pam." Pam was their custodian, assigned specifically to Parson's neurology wing, and they all knew how hard she worked. But that wasn't the reason.

"You did it because you don't want a kitten destroying those slippers."

Simone focused on the tablet and didn't bother to deny it. "I've never had a pair survive this long, and I'm not going to see them prematurely destroyed by a ball of fur and claws."

"Don't forget teeth."

"Not forgetting teeth." Simone frowned at the tablet. "Let's hope those teeth do the trick. Wanda, get another sample out of Five in about thirty minutes. If his inflammation markers haven't halved, we're going to have to try something else."

There wasn't a whole lot more to try. The sponge bath – and more importantly, the shampooing – should have released a healthy dose of oxytocin and given him at least a little bump in serotonin. Coupled with an irresistible kitten and some light physical activity, he should be enjoying the effects of said hormones for at least an hour. If Dora worked her magic as well this time as she had the first time, the serotonin should send him into a natural sleep cycle, and if that poor young man had any luck at all, he'd be equipped to face what was likely going to be an extremely stressful and frustrating attempt to configure whatever device the Phoenix Foundation had come up with.

That was really the problem. He was already at the bottom of the hole. Regardless of how much spunk he showed this morning, there was no way he was over what had happened yesterday. He couldn't take another setback, not so soon after that seizure.

More than anything, MacGyver needed a win. Not just getting his way with a little more time off the vent, or what channel he watched on his screen. He needed to see real progress. He needed to feel it.

He needed hope is what he needed. Just a little bit. Just to get him over the hump. Once the neurogenic shock had abated enough to let him walk, and the lung healed up well enough to let him off the vent . . . he was so close –

So close. He just needed something to go his way.

-M-

"Dude. Chill."

It hadn't worked the last four times she'd made the suggestion – granted, using different words – and it didn't work now. Bozer was on his feet, pacing back and forth in front of the long conference room table, and he didn't even break stride.

"I'm chill," he assured her, for at least the sixth time. Twice he'd pre-emptively announced it to the room at large.

"Yeah, you totally look it," Riley agreed sarcastically, and she finally got a half-hearted glare out of him.

She got it, probably better than Bozer really understood. It was her little black box – well, little _white_ box – being inspected by IT engineers. If by some miracle they actually realized what she'd built, that it was more than just a glorified video game console, she was pretty sure she and Bozer would be arrested. Forever. No one else, not even Matty, knew the full capabilities of the device.

Well, probably not. Maybe not.

Who was she kidding. Matty knew everything.

Riley uncrossed her ankles, which were propped up on the table, and then swapped the bottom leg and crossed them again.

The conference room was nice. There was a large-screen TV on one wall for videoconferencing, and a camera that wasn't even trying to pretend it wasn't actively watching them. Jack and Bozer had built the place up as some kind of Clockwork Orange-esque horror hospital, full of furtive looks from creepy orderlies surreptitiously jamming loaded syringes into their pockets. And sure, she'd seen the fortifications in the lobby, all the cameras, and the TSA-like security they'd encountered just on the other side of a totally innocent-looking door. But the woman at the reception desk seemed sincere enough, and honestly the whole place gave her more of an FBI HQ vibe than Arkham Asylum.

"I'm just," and Bozer turned on pointe and began pacing in the opposite direction, like the soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknown, "I'm just tired of waitin'. We've been ready with this thing almost a week, then it's suddenly hurry up and be here at exactly this time," and he jerked his shirt sleeve up to glare at his watch, "which was _four hours_ ago –"

Riley shook her head with a small smile. "That's government for you, Boze. Hurry up and wait."

"I'm about done waiting," he continued hotly. "What if somethin' happened? What if he had another seizure? What if there's a reason they're not lettin' us see him?"

What if he couldn't use the device.

That was the subtext, the question under the question. What if they tried it, and they found out that he wasn't fine. Riley hadn't been watching the feeds as closely as the rest of them – she couldn't, she didn't have quite the free time they did. And even if she had the time –

She couldn't. She couldn't sit and watch him struggle with the simplest of things. Sleep fifteen hours a day. And when he _was_ awake, he looked so –

Riley cleared her throat. "Well, if you want, you can walk back to the door again. That's sure to bring our nanny running."

And right on cue, as if it was scripted, the door clicked open.

She rotated in her chair – after throwing a triumphant smirk at Bozer – and discovered it was not their nanny, come to offer them another round of sandwiches and chips. This woman was in her late thirties, wearing business formal under a starched white coat that brought out all the freckles and hard lines, and though they'd never met, Riley recognized her immediately.

"Hey, doc," she greeted. "You planning on letting us see Mac anytime soon?"

The woman didn't hesitate, pushing the door behind her closed with her foot while she consulted a tablet. "You are . . . Riley Davis, yes? And of course, Mr. Power of Attorney." She took in Bozer, who was still on the far end of the room, and her eyes flicked to the blank television. "You didn't turn it on?"

"Oh, we did," Riley assured her, tilting her head towards the flatpanel on the table. "Right about the time I managed to find cable TV your technical team politely asked us to stop."

She hadn't actually been looking for daytime television – at least not the kind broadcast to the rest of Grand Junction. And she was pretty sure the doc's techs had told her the same, because the doctor looked faintly amused.

"They can be a little . . . overzealous sometimes. Then again, aren't most technical folks pretty binary?" She walked over to the table and tapped the videoconferencing panel. "You're either following the rules or you're not."

Riley took her feet off the table as the TV clicked to life, and Bozer visibly held himself back from snapping a response, choosing to take the high road, and a chair of his own.

Dr. Simone Parsons acknowledged him with a nod. "Thank you for waiting so patiently."

That was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back; he snorted. "You wanna tell me why I'm waitin' in the first place? We sent the specs ahead –"

Parsons waved a hand, taking a seat herself. "Auditory issues still present, check. Like I said, our technical staff can be a little overzealous. You, however, have been waiting on your bestie."

Sure enough, though the doctor had simply turned the system on, the screen had come up on a very familiar picture. The same video feed they had back at Phoenix, of a lone man lying in a hospital bed.

Riley shifted. No, not quite the same video. And not alone.

This shot gave them a much broader picture of the rest of the room, even around the patient privacy curtain. There was no other human in the room, that was certain – the only one of those was just opening his eyes, trying to catch his breath. However, there was definitely something else moving around in there. It was on the floor, near the foot of his bed, its back to the camera, and its little tail was waving back and forth in displeasure.

It was the kitten.

"You can thank Metrodora for cutting your wait short," the doctor continued drolly. "Nurse Wanda will get him prepped and once he's fully awake, you'll be permitted to set up the device."

Riley watched, a little bemused, as the kitten paced to the right edge of the foot of the bed and stood up on the gurney wheel. She was much too small to make the jump, but it was pretty clear she wanted back up on the bed.

"She musta jumped off while he was sleepin'," Bozer remarked quietly. Then he seemed to remember that he wasn't sitting in Dr. Talbot's office, because he shot a quick glance over his shoulder at Parsons. "You said her name was Metra . . . Metra –"

"Metrodora." Simone's voice was cool. "She's a therapy animal in training, and one of the tools we're using to keep your roomie there from freaking out."

"Y'mean like he did yesterday morning?" Bozer shot back. Parsons was unruffled.

"Yes, I mean like yesterday morning," she admitted. "Tonic seizures can often cause the sufferer to experience intense emotions. Sometimes those emotions are pleasant, even euphoric. He wasn't that lucky." She turned back to the screen, apparently watching for the aforementioned nurse to collect the insistently crying kitten. "He seems to have recovered fairly well, but one of my nurses will remain in the room with you during today's and tomorrow's sessions."

Almost as if he heard her words – and disagreed with them – an annoyed look crossed Mac's face, and his left hand grasped the blanket covering him. He twitched it sharply to the left, gathering about half the fabric, then threw it over the side of the bed.

She almost laughed. _Take that, blanket_. "Guess he's a little warm." And apparently not happy to have been woken by the very kitten that was supposed to be keeping him relaxed.

"Nah, that ain't it," Wilt murmured, and gestured at the screen. "Watch."

Mac was leaned up a little, probably to help him breathe, but being ventilated he couldn't pick up his head much or turn it at all. So he stared up at the ceiling in frustration, his left hand still tangled in the blanket he'd half-thrown off the bed, and he started twitching it.

Trying to get the kitten distracted so it would shut up-

No. He was trying to get the kitten's attention for a whole different reason.

Riley couldn't help a little smile as they heard Mac tap on the hard plastic bedrail, then start twitching the blanket again. Metrodora seemed oblivious, still trying to climb the gurney wheel, and she let out a plaintive little mew. Dr. Parsons reached into her pocket.

"Just give 'im a second," Bozer said, putting out his hand to stop her from summoning her nurse or interrupting. "He's got this."

Mac jerked a little more of the blanket over the side, so that the hem of the blanket was just brushing the tile. He twitched it violently a few times, then went back to the more gentle shaking.

And sure enough, as soon as she saw it from underneath the bed, the kitten watched it a second, then crawled down from the wheel and darted under the bottom edge of the bed. All they could see was her little tail lashing back and forth, and then she butt-wiggled in the way of all kittens, but it took her a good twenty or so seconds to make up her mind. Even though Mac couldn't see her – and now couldn't hear her – he didn't stop what he was doing.

And the frustrated look never left his face. Not until he felt the weight of her, hitting the blanket in a serious pounce. He twitched the blanket some more, keeping her occupied, then tried to tug it back up across his stomach, using both his hands this time. The fishing expedition worked; Metrodora hung on, biting the blanket, and as soon as half of her was in the air she seemed to catch on, and started climbing the blanket herself.

Bozer leaned back. "Told ya," he said smugly.

Mac continued glaring at the ceiling until she was fully on the bed – still wrestling with the blanket – and then he dropped his eyes down to his chest, wiggling his fingers underneath the blanket as Metrodora tried to maul him.

Riley glanced curiously at the doctor, who had indeed texted someone, and was just setting her iPhone down. "There's a TV mounted in the ceiling above him, right?"

He hadn't been glaring at the ceiling. He'd been using the reflection in the screen to try to locate Metrodora.

The doctor was studying the TV intently, her face expressionless. "Yes," she finally answered. "I'm pleased he's finally getting some use from it."

Which meant she'd seen it too.

And even though he'd been successful at rescuing the kitten, and his expression had softened as he played with her, there was no triumph there. He didn't look proud of himself.

He looked . . .

Sad.

And maybe Dr. Parsons saw that too, because she stood, and pocketed the phone. "As soon as IT's finished with your device, they'll bring it to the patient room. You can wait with him until then."

Riley glanced at Bozer, who looked surprised – and a little wary. "We allowed to call him 'Mac' this time?"

"You are. He's confirmed that he remembers his name – and expressed a preference that we don't address him as 'Angus.'"

This time Riley did snort, uncoiling herself from the chair and standing as well. "Wouldn't you, if _your_ name was Angus?"

"Hey, now, he was named after his mom's father –"

Riley held up her hands, following the doctor to the door. "Easy Boze, I've never once given him a hard time about his name. I'm not Jack."

The doctor held the door open for them. "Yes, I meant to ask – Mr. Dalton won't be joining us?"

Behind her, Bozer decided to field that one. "No. He's tied up with somethin' else." Parsons seemed to take it in stride, circling them to lead the way down a perfectly normal-looking hospital hallway.

"The rules regarding telling him about the events that put him here haven't changed. You may not tell him any details about his injuries outside of broad statements, and even then only about his chest wound and the sepsis. It is crucial to his testing that he goes into it without any preconceived notions about how he should perform."

Riley didn't say a word.

As if Mac was going to go into this without expectations. The second he saw the lineup of the games, he'd know exactly what they were looking for. And he'd be able to figure out why.

If he hadn't already.

"Outside of that topic, I'd prefer you steered clear of reminiscing, or anything that would tax his long-term memory. And no specifics about work. You can tell him his colleagues miss him, and share new information as it pertains to relationships he has with other people, but no details. He has enough to worry about."

"Wow," Riley commented, as they turned a corner and the doors on either side of the hallway seemed more widely spread out. There were a few scrubs-clad nurses in the hallway, but no one gave them a second look. "Can I at least catch him up on Game of Thrones?"

"Is that less stressful than your work?" Simone inquired mildly.

That was actually a pretty good question. "Boze, does Mac even watch Game of Thrones?"

Bozer had caught up, and was now leading the way, as if he had a destination in mind. Clearly he'd been in this hallway before. "Nah, not unless I've got it on when I'm cookin'. He's more into podcasts right now. And we're both waitin' for the next Marvel flick."

At least he hadn't missed one of those. Yet.

"Besides, the plotholes in GoT would drive him nuts." Bozer stopped beside one of the doors expectantly. "Don't suppose our little ID badges actually open this door?"

Dr. Parsons came to a stop with him, and inclined her head. "Why don't you find out?"

He stared at her. "For real?" Then he glanced down the hallway. "I'm not gonna get arrested?"

The doctor looked amused. "Should you be arrested?" She didn't let him answer, reaching out and tapping the badge that they were both required to wear in plain sight, above their waists. "This badge will let you enter MacGyver's room, the conference room we just left, the lobby, and the cafeteria. It also allows our security system to track your whereabouts in the facility. Don't take it off, don't go places you aren't supposed to, and don't try to remove anything that isn't yours. Other than that, you're visitors here, and will be treated as such."

Then she gestured at the door. "Now don't go barging in there like storm troopers, but in general, he's expecting you. Come and go as you need to to set up and configure your device. Wanda's already in there and she's announced you."

Right. The text.

Looking a little dubious, Bozer extended his badge by its elastic lanyard and waved it in front of what Riley could tell immediately was _not_ a normal badge reader, and the reader beeped and released the magnetic lock. Still not looking a hundred percent sure, he grasped the handle, and when nothing terrible happened to him, he pushed the door open.

He entered the room a little hesitantly, and Riley glanced at the doctor, who was making no move to follow them in, and stepped through.

The room was way bigger than it looked on camera. Plenty of space to keep as much equipment as needed – and there was a lot of it. Riley glanced over it quickly, but she honestly wasn't sure what any of it was, besides a dialysis machine that she hoped they hadn't had to use. The privacy curtain kept them from seeing Mac from the door, but she could see Wanda at the foot of his bed, and the nurse waved them in enthusiastically. Her voice was calm and soothing.

"-of the devil, there he is. Wilt, isn't it?"

Bozer froze for just a second, then squared his shoulders and walked confidently around the curtain. Riley heard the click and hiss of a ventilator, and then Bozer disappeared from view. The curtain did nothing, however, to block his upbeat voice.

"Hey Mac! So are we getting a cat, now, or what?"

Wanda smiled at the scene – nothing like a kitten to break the ice, after all – and then glanced at Riley with slightly raised eyebrows. It was pretty clear what she was asking.

 _You comin'?_

And just like Boze had, she felt herself hesitating.

All this time, she'd had her console to hide behind. Before that, the job. Helping Boze help Mac. She'd hoped to have walked in here with it, so there was no downtime, no opportunity to worry or think about things, but here she was, with nothing but a blue curtain between them, and she wasn't totally sure she actually wanted to be on the other side of it.

What if he – he reacted to her? What if Bozer realized that something was up? What if it upset him, what if –

Riley shook her head – at herself – and then pasted on a smile and made her feet carry her around the curtain.

The smile became genuine in a hurry. Metrodora was standing pretty much on Mac's knee, almost like a dog, with her tail straight up in the air, sniffing the finger Bozer had extended towards her. Mac was watching the two of them, looking alive for the first time since –

Alive. Curious. Interested. _That's_ what his eyes had been missing.

 _Well, I got that for you in spades, dude. Plenty of games to pass the time._

Mac blinked as he shifted his focus to her, and that light in them seemed to falter.

She told herself not to take it personally, and focused on Bozer practically melting over Metrodora. "Okay, that's ridiculous." She cocked an eyebrow at Mac, inviting him to agree with her, and he stared at her for another second, then looked back at Bozer as he cooed and tickled the kitten under her chin. She stretched her head up, purring loudly and clearly enjoying it, then half-slipped off Mac's knee and spent a few seconds rebalancing by way of digging her claws probably all the way to his skin.

If it hurt him, he didn't show it. He did, however, turn his left hand palm-up on the mattress, and Bozer closed the distance between them. As soon as he was close enough, Mac folded his palm into a loose fist, and Bozer gently bonked it with his own.

"Good to see ya, man," he said, his voice deliberately light, and Mac gave him two blinks, then looked back to her. Riley took the opportunity to introduce herself to the kitten, who sniffed her just as curiously as she had Bozer.

"You better watch it, Mac," she warned him semi-seriously. "You let Boze get attached, you're gonna end up with a kitten in the house."

Wilt seamlessly latched onto what she was putting down. "We talked about it – hey, precious girl, lookit you – but with Mac outta town so much with the 'think tank', and me workin' all those shifts at the Grind House, and _someone's_ insistence that outside cats are bad for the environment," and Bozer gave Mac a slightly reproachful look, "we decided against it."

Metrodora actually abandoned Mac's knee to come over to her, and Riley stroked the kitten as she did a quick turn, allowing petting from every angle.

"You're a little stinker," Riley told the kitten, then glanced up at Mac again, finding his eyes still glued to her face. "You know, chicks dig cats. I'm just saying."

"I don't think handsome here needs any help in that department," his nurse spoke up, her voice fond. "I've gotta take Metrodora to her next appointment, then I'll see if I can figure out who's holdin' up the show." The nurse approached on Mac's left, and he glanced at her as Wanda scooped up the Siamese kitten, but his attention immediately refocused on them. Wanda held the kitten out for last pets, then whisked her off to a small carrier, leaving Mac in their capable hands. Bozer replaced Wanda on Mac's left, settling himself on the mattress.

"We miss you, man. Place just isn't the same without weird chemical smells at two am."

Mac's eyebrows rose apologetically, and then he glanced at her again, then past her to the curtain.

Watching for someone else.

Riley gave him a bracing smile. "Yeah, sorry, just me and Boze this time around. I'll let Jack tell you in his own words." She slipped her phone from her back pocket, unlocking it and scrolling to the gallery, and beside her, Nurse Wanda appeared like magic, holding a fabric pet carrier in hand. She gave Riley an inquiring look, which Riley returned, then held up the phone.

"It's just a recorded video, it's not live," she reassured the nurse, and the woman narrowed her eyes. Playfully, Riley realized, when she suddenly broke into a smile.

"That's just fine, sweetie. I'll be right back, but if any of you need anything, just hit that page button on the bedrails, okay?"

Riley nodded and then turned back and approached Mac on his right, holding the phone where he could easily view it.

Though Riley couldn't see the video from her angle, she could hear the audio just fine. "Hey bud! Jack Dalton, that's yours truly, here in the – Riley, if you try to take this thing away from me one more time, so help me -" There was a brief pause and a little scuffle, that was Jack getting too close to his own face as he held the phone and also tried to pose by the War Room furniture. "So these two chuckleheads have been down in the lab givin' god knows what upgrades to Sparky, Riles says it's basically an Xbox but between you and me, brother, wouldn't be surprised if the damn thing sprouts legs and goes wanderin' off for world domination. And you know I wouldn't miss the Robocalypse for anythin'. Wanna be there to see the beginning of the end, know what I mean?"

Mac blinked at the phone as Jack shifted, and his voice, when he spoke again, was downright gentle over the smartphone's speakers. "But I got a little somethin' to take care of first. 'Member when I told you, sometimes the best way to have your back is to do it somewhere else entirely? This is one of those times. I'll wrap things up just as quick as I can, dude. In the meantime, you just rest up, and please try an' stop Boze and Riley from startin' the robot revolution?"

MacGyver blinked at the phone again, then surprised her by reaching up for it. She let him, but it wasn't the phone he was after. He covered her hand with his own, in almost the exact same way he'd done on the boat, and gently pressed the phone down and away.

Telling her he wasn't interested in Jack's video.

Then he squeezed her hand, clumsily but gently, and let her go.

Riley gave him another smile and played it off, slipping the phone back into her pocket. "As usual, he's exaggerating. And this time, it was all Boze. I'm just the hired help."

On Mac's left, Bozer snorted. "Yeah, right. I just came up with the idea. Riley here's the one who pulled it off."

The next twenty or so minutes whiled away much more pleasantly than Riley had anticipated, with Bozer animatedly discussing how he'd come up with the idea for the device, and how it was supposed to work. Mac couldn't speak, of course, but he found ways to indicate what he was thinking, in the form of blinking, eyebrow bobs, and occasional gestures. He could make fists, he could raise them, he could obviously grasp things, albeit weakly. It was more than sufficient to give the cameras everything they needed to interpret his communication attempts.

He was very careful when he touched them, and once the conversation had turned towards the retelling of the argument Sparky and Jill had gotten into on the finer points of data science, Mac started idly toying with his hacky sack. He tried to keep up that façade of being engaged and interested, but she caught him a couple times looking her way, seeming to study her, and she had to admit she was a little relieved when the door opened, and Wanda reappeared with a small cart, upon which sat a little white box and associated paraphernalia.

"Delivery for Miss Davis," the nurse called, wheeling it into line of sight of the patient, and Mac's focus shifted to the cart. Bozer hopped up from the side of the bed and clapped his hands together.

" _Finally_! And don't give me crap about the color scheme, alright? We hadda pick shades that would give good contrast."

The second Riley got her hands on the main console she could tell it had been opened. The box was designed to allow it – after all, if someone brought a random device into the Phoenix to plug into _her_ network, she'd sure as hell crack it open and make sure she knew what was inside. Riley slipped off the cover, taking a quick visual inventory, but everything was still there. All the chips were in place, all the cameras, even the disguised microphone. Nothing had been added, either, not even sandwiched in between the processor and the board, and nothing placed between the network card and the port, either.

Someone – or more likely _someones_ – had thoroughly checked the gloves, too, But considering she'd only seen this hardware at the grey hat convention, she wasn't surprised the men and women here at St. Mary-Dismas had completely overlooked the system's additional features.

Or at least she sure as hell hoped they had. Otherwise they were just waiting for her to plug it in before they swooped in and arrested her. Good intentions wouldn't matter here. The point was that it was a two way communication device, and they were standing in a building filled with compromised intelligence assets. Matty couldn't just pretend this was some kind of sting against the agency running this hospital. And even though they were feeling a little more warm and fuzzy towards Simone Parsons – or at least _she_ was, Jack was still on the fence – and breaking Mac out in order to save him from life imprisonment was no longer the primary goal, they still needed that two way communication. They needed to be able to reassure him that he wasn't on his own, particularly when access to him was so difficult to get.

And on the chance that someone else came for him.

Wanda had one eye on her patient, but the other on her. "Everything set?"

Riley managed a fairly easy nod and slipped the cover back on. "Looks that way." She handed off the gloves to Bozer. "Let's get him ready for his close-up."

Bozer held up what looked like a pair of safety-cone orange fishnet gloves. "You're not gonna win any fashion shows, but trust me, these work great."

Mac looked at them a moment, then back up at his best friend, and his eyebrows drew together. The question was obvious.

Riley let Bozer explain the complex network of sensors, instead kneeling down and grabbing her backpack off the bottom tray of the cart. It was time to install the part of all of this they were most proud of.

And sure enough, Mac's eyebrows started climbing as she took two lime-green steel spring clamps out of her bag and clamped them onto the plastic footboard at the end of his bed. Once they were firmly in place, she set the specially drilled-out melamine board on top of them, and then placed the white box, cameras facing Mac, on top of the makeshift table.

"Yeah, we thought you'd like that." Bozer looked enormously pleased. "We were tryin' to figure out a way to keep the cameras on you with no table, and I remembered that's how we set up the PS2 in the Lab."

The Lab was of course not Mac's lab in Phoenix, but the treehouse he and Boze had had growing up, and she didn't miss the way Bozer was watching his roommate, hoping for some sign of recognition. Mac gave it to him, in the form of two blinks, then twitched his fingers in the outrageously bright gloves.

"Hold that thought. We need to make sure we've got a good connection back to Sparky." There was both power and network access on the bed, eliminating the danger of cords or wires stretching across areas where his care team would need to walk, and Riley attached both to the non-emergency ports, confirming the power light came on before grabbing her phone out of her back pocket.

Any type of live camera output via smartphone while in the facility was explicitly prohibited, but normal voice calls and texts were not. Riley knew for a fact that the facility was pulling a man-in-the-middle – they had hardware in place that was pretending to be a regular cellphone tower that her phone had connected to, allowing their technical team to see every byte of data moving into and out of her phone – so her texts to Jill had to be carefully worded.

 **We're all good on this end. Receiving?**

It took the analyst only a few moments to respond. **Connection looks good. I think we're ready!**

At the same time, the front panel gave Riley three quick blinks, the pre-arranged signal.

So Jill and Phoenix were getting both video and sound, and were capable of transmitting back. So far, so good.

"- so then Jack puts them on, you know, and I'm figurin' maybe a Rocky Horror reference or maybe just Rocky straight up, but he goes all Bring It On style 'jazz hands' an'-"

"And I think Mac's had enough trauma without imaging what that looked like," she interrupted drily, connecting the console to her laptop before plopping down on a stool the nurse had helpfully wheeled over. "We're ready to get started if you are, Mac."

MacGyver had gone back to pretending to be interested in the story – and who didn't want to hear a story about Jack in fishnet gloves – and when he looked her way again, there was something reserved in his eyes. He blinked at her twice, deliberately, and turned his right wrist a little, making sure it wasn't covered by the sheet and was in direct line of sight of the white box.

"Okay. The first thing we're going to do here is get baselines for simple gestures. You don't have to actually make the gesture, all you need to do is try. The software will extrapolate what you were trying to do based on micro-movements of your muscles. Make sense?"

He told her that it did.

"Cool. So let's start with . . . a thumb's up for yes. Right or left hand, doesn't matter."

Mac stared at her a moment, as if confused, but then he turned his left hand and made a loose fist. He managed to twitch his thumb up a little, but it was far from a proper thumb's up. An expression of frustration crossed his face.

"Nope, that was perfect," she assured him, and gave the software a second to reset. "Just what we needed. Okay, and again?"

They spent the next couple hours like that, with Riley walking him through a series of gestures. Hand flat. Hand fisted. Drumming his fingers. Pinching his forefinger and his thumb. Pinching his middle finger and his thumb. Shaking his hand side to side, then up and down. At first he'd been impatient, then clearly frustrated, but soon he calmed down and apparently accepted that he simply wasn't going to be able to do everything she was asking him to do absolutely perfectly, and he'd either settled for what he could manage – or it was taking everything he had just to concentrate, and he didn't have energy to spare being annoyed with himself. Still, he didn't show any signs of wanting to stop; Wanda asked him twice if he needed a break and the single, emphatic blink he gave her almost made Riley smile.

He might be tired, and he might be less than satisfied with his performance, but he was definitely still very sure about what he wanted, and he wanted to be able to start using this system as soon as possible.

And all the while the room, his movements, their voices, all of it was going to Phoenix, giving the Drs. Talbot and Matty a front row seat. Jill didn't text her again, which meant the encryption tunnel was working as designed. So she was taken by surprised when the door opened, and a young man with dark, curly hair and a Tony Stark beard marched in.

He didn't advance beyond the curtain, and didn't so much as glance towards the patient bed. He came just far enough in that he could see her, perched on a stool beside the foot of the bed. "Riley Davis?"

She very carefully didn't even glance at Bozer. ". . . yeah?"

The man gestured impatiently to the door. "I need to speak with you outside."

"It's about time for a break anyway," Wanda interjected calmly, from her own perch near the windows that Riley was pretty sure couldn't possibly actually be real. "Handsome here needs some eyedrops, and you haven't moved for two hours."

Riley paused the software and locked her laptop, and the man shook his head and gestured to it with a motion that clearly meant _that's coming too_. Her stomach dropped, but Riley didn't show it at all, she just stood, stretched a little – more for Mac's benefit and to piss off the Tony wannabe than because she was stiff – and flashed Mac and Boze a teasing look.

"Try not to break it while I'm gone."

"No promises," Bozer quipped back, with the same easy smile. Then she was around the curtain and out into the hallway.

There were two enormous men in suits, and one not so enormous but fairly tall skinny guy she recognized as Alec Dubois, one of Parsons' nurses, waiting for her. She opened her mouth but the nurse shook his head sharply and reached around behind her to pull the door shut. Only when it was closed did anyone speak.

"Riley Davis?" one of the suits intoned.

She gave him a look. "Yeah, we've already established that. What's up."

"I need you to follow me please."

She made a semi-sarcastic 'lead the way' gesture, and didn't miss the way Tony Stark was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. The nurse stayed by Mac's door, and the second big suit followed her. He didn't tailgate, he wasn't treating her as an outright threat. And he shouldn't be. If the encryption tunnel wasn't broken, they couldn't know what she was doing.

They just couldn't. It wasn't technically possible.

So she kept a slightly annoyed look on her face and was a little surprised when she was led back to the original conference room, where she and Bozer had spent the early afternoon, and even found Dr. Parsons in there, waiting for them. She'd changed clothes; now she was in scrubs, and some seriously 80's hot pink sneakers. She was on her feet, glued to a tablet, and didn't even look up as they marched Riley in.

The Tony Stark wannabe slid into a seat and immediately took ownership of the videoconferencing tablet, bringing up some kind of dashboard on the screen. "You want to explain this?"

Riley set her laptop on the table, hating that she was automatically keeping track of the two giant suits in her peripheral vision, and studied the dashboard. It was slick, some kind of network scanning tool, and it wasn't hard to figure out what he was having a cow about.

"It's a network bandwidth utilization dashboard. And?" She leaned her hip against the table and folded her arms, proud of how steady her hands were. "I sent you the specs. It's a fuckton of data, that's as small as I could compress it."

He gestured to it in disbelief. "I'm not worried about the size, the problem's that it's a steady feed. Your device was only specced to send data when the patient was actively using it-"

"He is," she cut him off. "He's using it right now. When it's on and the gloves are active, it's sending telemetry data."

"No, he's not," Tony contradicted her. "You're doing configuration right now. There should be dips where the software stops recording. But there aren't." He gestured again at the screen. "That data stream is dead steady. You're sending other data, and a lot of it."

That was quite correct. She rolled her eyes. "Didn't read your own requirements, did you." She then cast a glare towards Dr. Parsons, who was unmoved. "We need Phoenix processing power to chew through the telemetry, but we're not allowed to capture any data about the actual use of the application. Otherwise we'd be able to interpret his test responses. So as far as the gloves are concerned, every second they're active they're in use."

In reply, Tony toggled over to a view of MacGyver's room, and Riley was not at all surprised to see that he was completely still, eyes closed, and appeared to be asleep. "He's not moving, so they're not active. Data stream's still going full steam."

She pulled a card Dr. Talbot had put in her hand. "What, are you telling me his heart's not beating right now? He's not breathing?" The stats on the screen painted a much different picture – Mac was fine. Bozer and Wanda were no longer in the frame, the nurse must have chased him out to let Mac have a quick nap, but he was very clearly still alive and well. "That's what micro-movements mean. Those sensors detect temperature changes to the hundredth of a degree. They can sense the blood pulsing in his capillaries. As long as they're on a living person, they're active."

Tony looked to Dr. Parsons, in the first indication that he didn't think he was the most important person in the room, and the doctor glanced up, first at the screen, then at him. "She's correct. The human body is never fully still when it's alive. It's not even still after death, not for several hours, and even then there will be movement detections as bacteria grows and gases shift in the corpse."

That clearly wasn't the answer he wanted, and Riley gave him a shrug. "Or you can let me put a couple servers on your local network. Up to you."

Which she knew was never, ever going to happen.

So did he; he scowled and glared at the dashboard, almost willing his scanning tools to find the fatal flaw in her argument. It wasn't there. The encryption tunnel ensured beyond any doubt that they had literally no idea what kind of data her little white box was sending home. And the encryption was actually _their_ requirement – it prevented any possibility of the Phoenix picking up information about their network, as well as preventing them from getting access to the Phoenix network.

"Anything else?" She straightened and scooped up her laptop. "Because I've still got plenty of work to do."

Dr. Parsons raised an inquiring eyebrow, and Tony stared at the dashboard another moment, then swiped it off the screen with a finger.

"As for your calibration, Miss Davis, the patient's resting. Let him get an hour." The doctor's attention was back on her tablet. "Alec will escort you back when the patient is awake."

Tony and his two suits didn't wait to be dismissed; security took their cue from the tech. The look he shot Riley as he left very nearly made her smirk.

He knew. Of course he knew. But he couldn't prove it. And if he cried wolf, and it interfered with the treatment of an asset –

Then he wouldn't just be looking for a new job. He'd be looking for a new career.

Riley lifted the laptop a little, trying to get Parsons' attention. "Look, I can't get on the network here, so I can't do anything until I'm hardwired back in. I promise I won't wake him –"

"I don't doubt you," the doctor murmured, eyes still glued to the screen in her hands. "This is the longest period of engaged concentration he's experienced since he arrived here. And one of the longest sustained periods of movement. He's exhausted."

Something about her tone seemed a little off. "So . . . what? That's it? Come back tomorrow?"

Parsons glanced up at her, then at the monitor, where the image of Mac sleeping was still being displayed. "Ordinarily yes." She studied her patient for a long moment. "However, in this case, I don't think he'd rest well through the night. Like I said, give him an hour or so to work his way through a solid sleep cycle. After that, you'll have no more than forty-five minutes to finish."

Riley blinked at her. "To finish . . . for the day, right? Coming back tomorrow?"

"That's entirely up to you," Parsons replied, a little cryptically. "I'm not going to force you back into that room. It clearly makes you uncomfortable."

Riley had been warned – repeatedly – about Simone Parsons' little 'Jedi mind tricks,' as Jack liked to call them. It wasn't a surprise the psychologist would try them on her. "Yeah, it does," Riley admitted, her voice hard. "He should be home, with us, and I shouldn't have to build brand new technology and pull a winning lottery ticket to get a chance to see him."

"At first I pegged you for the romantic entanglement," the doctor said thoughtfully, as if Riley hadn't spoken at all. "But that's not it. You're angry with him, because he scared you, but it's not sex – or if it _is_ a crush, it's not consummated," she corrected herself. "You're blaming yourself for what happened to him."

Riley shifted the laptop to her hip. "Wow. You gonna bill my insurance for that, or do you take cash?"

Strangely, the doctor gave her a broad grin. "I like the energy. Keep it up. He's going to need it." She tapped her tablet, and the image of Mac on the display enlarged, to take up the whole screen. "All you tech junkies have the same problem. It's on or off to you. You're either following the rules or you aren't. You're either fine or you aren't. How's that working out for you?"

Riley simply raised her eyebrows, refusing to show a single shred of fear. Again, that reference to following the rules. Did she . . . know about the device . . . ? "You done?"

"Don't get me wrong. Everybody here knows you're up to something, and no one's going to interfere. At least not yet." She waved a hand at the screen. "Honestly, the more you can reassure him, the better off he'll be. He's wired a lot like you are. He's either fine or he's damaged, and if he's damaged then maybe he's not good enough."

There was no telling how much the doctor knew about Mac – some details of the job had to have been in the medical record she'd supposedly trashed without reading. "Listen, doc, if you got something to say, why don't you just say it?"

She seemed to mull that over for a moment. "You fucked up, apparently _royally_ , and you're still a person." The doctor's vibrant green eyes cut from the screen directly to hers. "Make sure when he leaves here that he knows that."

And then she took her tablet and walked right out the door.

Riley remained standing there by the table for a few minutes, not really sure what to do. Or what, exactly, the doctor was trying to tell her. That she could tell Riley was blaming herself? Hardly a secret. That maybe she fucked up by leaving Mac on that boat, but she was still an agent? Also not a secret. That she –

That she was fine. So fucking fine that a total stranger could see that it was still a little weird between her and Mac. And that she was the one being weird. He was half paralyzed on a ventilator, and she'd been the one who brought all the weird with her.

It wasn't long until Alec appeared and offered to take her to the cafeteria, where Bozer had ended up. She turned him down flat, and a few strong words got her right back into Mac's room, after doing everything short of pinkie promising she wasn't going to wake him up.

And she didn't. If anything, the sound of her keyboard should have been soothing. He'd sacked out to the sound of her typing on the jet so many times, trying to keep some semblance of a normal sleep pattern, especially after last year. She wanted to believe that she was one of the reasons he didn't wake up in an hour. Or another. It was two hours and twenty-seven minutes before he came around, with a sudden gasp that almost made her jump right off the stool.

No alarms went off, apparently they'd managed to solve that problem over the course of the past few weeks, and Riley hesitantly stood up when he gasped again, and his eyes opened briefly before squeezing shut.

"Hey," she said softly, not wanting to startle him, and his eyes popped back open instantly, scanning the room for her. She made it easy, walking over to the side of the bed, and he watched her, taking deep, deliberate breaths off the ventilator. His heart rate was just starting to level off.

It was way harder to stand beside him and watch it happen than it was on a video screen, and Riley sat gingerly on the mattress where Boze had been parked earlier. "Way to scare the shit out of me," she added.

He somehow managed to look apologetic and still a little agitated, all at the same time, and then he reached out his still-gloved left hand, and laid it on her knee. He didn't pat her or anything, she guessed it was kind of the equivalent of throwing an arm over her shoulder, or the best he could do. Just a little contact, to say hello, and that he was sorry.

Sorry for the fact that his own nightmares had scared him awake, and it had just so happened to startle her too. The same look he'd been giving her every time he thought she wasn't looking. Every time he wasn't distracted with the work. When she wasn't distracted with the work.

Matty's voice rang in the room like the woman was actually standing there. _Don't use work as a crutch._

Riley heaved a short sigh of her own. "Alright, before Boze gets back in here, let's get one thing straight." He stared at her, his eyes still a little wide, but then he gave her two blinks.

Shoot.

"I know what you're wondering," she told him levelly. "And you're right. You're damned right that I'm angry."

He stared at her, seeming to be a little surprised, and she patted his hand. "I'm fucking furious, Mac, and you and me, we're gonna have a long talk about it. But we're gonna talk about it when you have a voice to _talk_ with, dumb-dumb. You're _alive_. Okay? You're alive, and so am I. And that's the only thing that matters. Everything else can be worked out later. We've got the time. Okay dude? So just chill already."

He looked at her, really looked at her, and she gave him a wan smile. "Yeah, I know. Take my own advice. I got it."

The skin around his eyes crinkled, just a little, and his hand curled loosely in hers. Riley squeezed it back. "And I'm not kidding about Boze, dude. He sees that kitten again, it's _over_."

-M-

Jack slumped back on the couch, then hissed as his ribcage reminded him it still wasn't any more happy than his neck. He could only do so much about the first one, and he used his left hand to try to massage the other.

He often talked about how much he hated paperwork, but the truth was he'd been in the military, then the CIA, then DXS, then Phoenix. He'd been pushing paper since he was eighteen years old, and he was pretty damn good at it at this point. A few questionable after-action reports aside, it typically stood up to review pretty well.

This was not like that. Every single damn folder was staring up at him – and nobody smiled in profile pictures anymore, it looked like he was surrounded by the mug shots of a dozen suspects – and not a one was going to pass muster.

Not his muster, because none of them were going to work. And not Matty's, either, because none of them were going to work.

Jack let his sore skull fall back on the cushion and stared across the room at the big screen, where the majority was a slightly different perspective than the one they'd all been watching for weeks. Now the video was ultra high-def, and straight on. He could see his partner's eyes, his expression much better.

One of the other screens showed him what Mac was working on – currently he was playing a game of Space Invaders, and learning how to control those ridiculous-looking gloves. Jack honestly had no idea what Mac was really supposed to be doing, and whether it was his right or his left hand that was supposed to be doing it, but he could tell from the score that Mac was struggling.

"Ah, bud," he murmured to the screen, as if Mac could hear him. "Give yourself a chance, man."

As if they really had heard him, Bozer spoke up. "Hey, dude, it's cool. Take your time. We'll be here all day."

Mac actually gave him a look before refocusing on whatever screen he was watching, and Jack grinned broadly. "That's my boy."

He was frustrated, sure, but he wasn't givin' up. Not by a longshot.

Which meant he couldn't very well give up either.

Jack groaned, and let his head roll on the cushion, glaring at the red-head on the couch beside him. The least objectionable candidates had a coveted position on the couch or the table, unlike their fallen brethren on the floor. Each was a great guy or gal. Top of their classes, those with military backgrounds were decorated, hell, two of them had pilot licenses, and it'd be great to have a backup one of those.

They were all intelligent, diligent, disciplined. Any one of 'em would be a good pick for a Phoenix team.

Just not this one.

And he just couldn't shake the feeling that if he pulled this trigger, if he let one of these kids in, that it was going to be that much harder to get Mac back in this room where he belonged.

Back in the field, where he belonged.

Whatever Matty believed.

Jack growled and sat back up, glaring at the coffee table, where three more candidates stared up at him. "You don't have a say, so shut up," he grumbled at them, then rubbed his eyes until he saw stars.

Matty had been crystal clear. He wasn't coming out of that room until he'd picked a replacement for Mac. She might as well have asked him to fart rainbows himself, since he was lookin' for a damn unicorn that didn't exist.

"You ain't always right," he mumbled aloud, to the room at large. "You wanted to put him with his own _kind_. And that ain't what he wants."

He didn't want to be sitting in a lab at MIT, doing crazy sciencey nerdy things with his crazy sciencey nerdy flame Frankie. Too theoretical, he'd said.

Even though he totally had the hots for her, and they'd probably have a kid by now.

Jack opened his eyes again, and stared at the monitors. Mac chose that moment to close his own, as the aliens took him out.

Mac would probably have a kid by now. Or at least be thinking about one. He'd have settled down with a woman by now, not an on again off again traitor, but a nice grad student who could talk dirty science to him.

He snorted. Not that Nikki had talked dirty science to him. At least he was pretty much like any other dude his age in _that_ department.

But Mac had said that wasn't what he wanted. That his place was in the field. That he couldn't do what he did from a lab in a building.

"That still what you want, bud?" he asked softly. On the screen, Mac left his eyes closed, and Jack heard him take a big breath off the ventilator before he opened his eyes again, and signaled Riley to start a new game.

If he couldn't come back here the way he wanted, he shouldn't come back at all. If he didn't think he could save enough lives on the other end of a radio, then he didn't need to be put in a position where he was watching men and women – maybe the men and women scattered around the room right now – doing what he couldn't.

But that was up to Mac. Every time he'd had the chance, he'd chosen this life. He could have walked away after the first thing with Nikki. He could have walked away after the second. All the close calls and near misses, and he'd never questioned his choice to be there. Not once.

So until Jack heard differently, and he heard it straight from the horse's mouth, then Mac was comin' back. Shitty video game scores be damned.

"It's a stupid game anyway," he told his partner. And really, so was this. He wasn't picking a replacement. All he was picking was the stand-in least likely to get Bozer or Riley – or his own happy ass – killed.

In which case, he was really down to four. Four people who even combined weren't quite equivalent to one blond bomb nerd.

And they didn't need to be.

Jack found himself looking back up at the monitor, as Dr. Parsons' voice cut through the rhythmic hiss and click of the ventilator. "That's enough for today. We need to prep the patient for his MRI tomorrow morning. We can resume calibrating the device when that's finished."

She didn't indicate why he needed an MRI, nor did she answer Bozer when he point blank asked the same question. Jack watched the screen like a hawk as Wanda appeared, on Mac's left, and started carefully removing the glove. Mac didn't fight her, he was too busy watching someone or something else, and whoever it was, they got a firm, single blink.

Mac was definitely not happy about something.

He scowled on behalf of his partner, waiting for Dr. Parsons to come on screen, but instead, the feed cut, and he swapped his attention to the silent, streaming video they'd had before. He was feeling about ten percent warmer towards the doc, now that they knew what had happened to ol' Howard Garcia. He'd also been the victim of a stroke, though not quite in the same place as Mac's, and worse, from what the docs Talbot had said. Most of her patients' recoveries were hailed as 'miracles,' so not all of them threw themselves off cliffs, but still.

If Mac was in better shape than Howard, and she was still worried he was gonna turn out the same, that meant there was probably a reason to worry. Riley's setup would give them a lot more information about Mac than they were getting through the silent movie, but nothing was gonna tell them what he was thinking about until they got that damn tube out of his throat, and he opened his mouth and told 'em.

And that wasn't gonna happen tomorrow. Which meant he had to pick one of these assholes to stand in until Mac told everyone, with his own voice, what he wanted.

And no matter what that was, Jack was gonna be right beside him, the whole way.

-M-

I have been made aware by several people that this update took a month. BUT! Look how much Mac is in it! That makes it better, right? Right?

I don't think there are any surprises in here. Mac's still struggling with whatever's on his mind, but at least we're a step closer to finding out what that is. Bozer and Riley have arrived with a life raft in the form of some sweet tech, and Riley and Mac finally got to see each other – both conscious, at any rate - for the first time since Mac left her behind on the lock. Jack's more than a little worried about Mac, but he's determined to give his partner all the time he needs to figure out what he wants.


	32. Chapter 32

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

Something was up with Riley.

He could see it in the way she stared at her screen blankly, without typing, for long periods on the flight home. And it was a short flight. Matty hadn't made them fly commercial this time, they'd used the domestic jet, with all the seats facing forward, and she'd grabbed the back row. He tried to talk to her a couple times, but then she put her earbuds in and focused on the laptop.

And didn't type.

They were supposed to be working on a few tweaks. The gloves did a great job interpreting Mac's hand movements, like they'd thought, but he wasn't able to move consistently enough yet, which confused the software. Or maybe confused Mac. Or maybe both. At the end of the second day, Mac was capable of navigating the menu of games, he was capable of pretty consistently moving the mouse to the right or left to answer A or B type questions, but his command of the voice application wasn't what he wanted.

Nor did he seem to have much of a sense of humor about it. Bozer had been especially proud of throwing in voice options for both Stephen Hawking and Einstein, but Mac had chosen the sort of general, midwestern male voice option. He had then figured out how to gesture a loop of 'No's, as fast as possible, so it sounded like a phone's turn by turn direction app was insisting "No no no no no no no no."

Bozer wasn't sure if that was humor, and Mac was playing with it, or that was a legitimate communication that he really, _really_ didn't like any of the voice options. It was damn hard to read him when he couldn't smile or laugh. Afterwards, he had looked at them expectantly, but neither he nor Riley had given Mac what he wanted, and in the end Mac had looked disappointed and started following instructions again.

Wilt still felt like _he'd_ been the one who had somehow failed a test.

Once they got the kinks worked out, it would be easier to control, and Mac could begin to add words to the library that St. Mary-Dismas had provided. He knew his best friend needed that complexity, sooner rather than later, which was why he'd started bugging Riley about it as soon as they'd left. And it was only then, when she told him "I know," for the twentieth time, that he noticed how weary she sounded. She wasn't angry, she wasn't joking. It was all business.

The way that she'd been treating Mac, it had been all business. Sure, a little cutting up about the kitten, but after that, it was about the work. And now that she had uninterrupted time to do the work, she wasn't.

She was just staring at her computer.

And Bozer wasn't sure what to do about it.

He flipped around in his seat, so that he was kneeling on it, draped over the back, and Riley glanced up at him inquiringly. When he didn't say anything, she reached up and tugged out her earbuds.

"You think of something else?"

He shook his head. "Nah. Just wanted to ask you how you were doin', that's all." After all , they hadn't really talked – _really_ talked – since –

Since Amsterdam.

And like she'd been doing in Amsterdam, Riley gave him a quick smile. "I'm good. Just tired."

"Yeah," Bozer agreed soberly. "I bet. You been workin' nonstop since we got back from Europe." He lost her eyes; they dropped back to her computer, but she didn't start typing, which he took as an invitation to continue. "What's goin' on, Riley? Is there anything I can do?"

She blinked, then rubbed her eyes with a frown. "No, not unless you learned Python in the last hour." It must have come out sharper than she intended, because her frown deepened. "Sorry, Boze. No, there's nothing you can do 'til we get back. Sparky might –"

"I'm not talkin' about work," he interrupted. "I'm talkin' about you. We haven't talked – about any of it. I'm sorry, I think that's my fault, I been so focused on Mac, and I shouldn't'a been. If you need to talk . . . you know I'm here, right?" He dropped his head until he got her eyes back. "We're good, you and me, right?"

She gave him a half-hearted smile, but it died quickly. "Yeah. We're good." The frown came back, just as half-hearted as the smile. ". . . right?"

Bozer couldn't help it. He snorted. "Right? Lemme go first. If you still think you're somehow responsible for what's happenin' to Mac right now, you're an idiot." She recoiled, just a little, and Wilt wrapped his arms around the headrest, trying to get that much closer to her. "You don't need to prove anything. Not to me, not to him, not to anyone. I know he'd appreciate it if we could get the tweaks ready sooner rather than later, but I think he'd appreciate it more knowin' that you were okay, and not working yourself into the hospital room next door."

There was a little flash of something in her eyes. "Okay, cool. And _you_ know that you did exactly what you were supposed to, and what he wanted you to do, when you signed that withdrawal order, right?" She raised an eyebrow. "Because this single-minded focus on Mac tells me you still think you let him down."

The only reason he didn't lean back was because he knew flat up it was a tell, it was a flinch, and even though he forced himself to stay still, he knew she saw it when her eyebrows fell, and her eyes softened a little.

"Yeah," she said, then swallowed. "That? That's how I feel every time someone tells me not to feel guilty."

He knew, on many levels, that she was right. That Mac probably would have been all for him signing the medical order to have life-sustaining treatment stopped. Particularly now, now that he'd told Jack that he could hear them while he was in the coma. If that actually _was_ what Mac had meant. Jack believed it wholeheartedly, but Parsons said they were seeing what they wanted to see, and –

And maybe what he wanted to see was forgiveness. Was the lack of accusation in his best friend's eyes when they looked at him. But maybe that was just because Mac didn't know. Didn't know they'd unplugged him. Maybe by the time that happened he'd been too far gone to hear them.

But she was also right that it didn't matter. He'd signed that order. He'd given up. And it was nothing less than a miracle that Mac's brain had chosen that moment to get its shit together. Wilt was going to have to carry around that decision for the rest of his life. Even if Mac used that software to personally tell him it was the right choice, the choice that Mac wanted, it would always, always feel like a mistake.

. . . which probably meant that no matter what he said, what _anyone_ said, Riley was always going to feel like she'd let Mac down.

Bozer sighed. "Well, then we can talk about that," he pointed out, trying to make his voice sound light. "I guess me and you are the only two people who know what it feels like."

Riley shook her head. "Jack's in the same boat," she told him quietly. "For letting Mac ditch him at the courthouse." Her lips twisted wryly. "And I suspect if we asked him, Mac would say he feels the same way for letting _us_ down. This is a dumb fucked up circle and I can _see_ how stupid it is, but that doesn't – doesn't make it _feel_ any better. It's like I can't figure out how to – and the way he looks at us . . ."

Wilt licked his bottom lip. "He's frustrated, Riley –"

"It's not just that and you know it," she interrupted, her voice barely louder. "You saw him. Saw the look on his face, Boze. The look in his eyes. Like – something's missing. And he's trying to hide it, but when he's tired, he just can't anymore, and –"

Wilt shook his head. "No, Riley, that's not what you think."

She pressed her lips together, then angrily swiped a finger under her left eye. Bozer abandoned his seat, sliding down the narrow aisle to take the one beside her. He gave her a reassuring smile – or at least he hoped it was.

"That's the look he gets when he thinks he's bein' an imposition. That's all. He had the same look in his eyes when we were thirteen and he got Rocky Mountain spotted fever."

She blinked at him, and then a slow, startled smile spread across her face. "Rocky Mountain spotted fever?"

Bozer nodded. "Yeah. You get it from ticks – anyway. His grandpa was gone somewhere, so Mac was stayin' with us, and he didn't want to worry Ma and figured it was just the flu or somethin'. By the time the rash popped up, he was pretty sick. Spent a solid week in bed. Every time anyone besides me would come into the room, that would be the look on his face. Just . . . sorry that anyone had to go out of their way for him."

Even at the time, as a thirteen year old boy, Bozer had realized there was something terribly sad about that. That his best friend felt guilty for the attention, for needing to be taken care of. He'd have been eating up that comfort – and had told Mac flat up to enjoy it. That his ma liked taking care of sick kids, that it wasn't a big deal. Mac had eventually stopped looking like a kicked puppy every time he'd gotten sick or broken a bone, there had even come a time when Ma Bozer could lay her hand on his head and he'd accept the touch like everyone else, like it was normal, like he belonged.

Honestly, it wasn't too long after that that they'd both realized girls weren't so disgusting after all, and Boze liked to believe it was the hard work of Ma Bozer that made Mac fully capable of having a healthy relationship. He sure as hell had stopped being shy about letting doting women take care of all his scrapes and burns.

Particularly if they were gorgeous blondes.

But seeing that look in his eyes now . . . Riley was probably right. Mac was kicking himself for getting hurt in the first place. Like it was his fault all this fuss was being made. Like he felt guilty.

"He's embarrassed. And fed up. I think he knows . . . he knows somethin's up. He knows we're all keepin' something from him. That's all."

That's all. As soon as he got better, as soon as he wasn't so drugged up and he could think clearly again, that look would fade. He'd be okay.

He'd be okay.

Riley didn't look convinced, and Bozer gave her his best bracing smile. "So don't worry about that. He's got a voice now. Some of that frustration'll fade away, and believe me, as soon as he can call Parsons out and start arguin' with her, that look'll fade too."

Riley looked at him, really looked at him, then nodded, and took a deep breath, exhaling in a rush. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you're right."

He wasn't sure he believed her. And he was pretty sure she wasn't sure if she believed her. He didn't say anything about it, though; he just nudged her a little with his shoulder. "'Course I am. And I'm right about you too. You gotta take a break."

Her eyes dropped back to her laptop. "I will. As soon as we get these tweaks done, I'll chill."

"Good. I was thinkin' about gettin' the firepit going this weekend. Burgers and brats."

"Sounds good." She closed her eyes for a moment, and an electronic chime rang through the cabin. ". . . look, I know you're worried, but I'm okay. Really. I'll . . . I'll get there. Just not right now. Okay?"

Bozer nodded, then glanced over the backs of the seats in front of them to where the copilot had just opened the cockpit door.

"We're about to land."

Bozer sent the man a two-fingered salute. "Ass in seat. Check." Beside him, Riley sat up straighter, and started packing up her rig. Since he'd taken up some of her space, Bozer helpfully fished her extra laptop battery out of the seatback pocket and handed it to her.

Riley accepted it, and Bozer waited until he had her eyes again. "Whenever you're ready, just name the place. I'll be there."

"I know," she said softly. They didn't speak again until the wheels touched down.

The ride from the hangar back to the Phoenix was short. It was after nine pm, which didn't mean a whole lot to LA traffic but at least it was dark, which generally justified his current level of exhaustion and desire to curl up in bed. He hadn't been lying about the burger and brats, it was long past time to get back together and hang on the back deck, but at least when he got home after dark he had an easy excuse to not bother to turn on the lights, and to just head straight to his bedroom.

If it was dark, it was okay that the house was quiet and still. It was normal. When it was broad daylight, that was when he started to notice just how empty the place truly felt.

Time to start doing something about that.

Another technician was just leaving as they arrived– Bozer thought his name was Calvin something – and Riley caught the door with her forearm as Wilt trudged past, carrying their duffels.

Calvin gave Riley a brilliant smile that might have made Bozer jealous, in another life. "Hey Davis, Bozer, aren't you two headed the wrong way?"

She flashed the technician a quick grin. "Job's never done, am I right?"

"Oh yeah," Calvin confirmed, and then he was headed out into the parking lot, and they were headed into the building.

There was always some level of activity at the Phoenix Foundation; it was a twenty four by seven kinda place, but the halls were a little emptier now than during normal business hours, and from the far end of the hallway, Josh Carter spotted them, and held up a hand in greeting. Bozer had his hands full with their duffels, but Riley shifted her pack on her shoulder and waved back, and then they turned the corner towards the War Room. The glass was frosted, and Bozer slowed them up as they neared the door. "Uh . . . should we just bust in, or –"

She started scrolling quickly through her texts. ". . . just says come to the War Room when we land, so . . . yeah. Bust away."

"Busting," he confirmed, then pushed open the door – which opened, the magnetic locks were not engaged – and stuck his head in. Matty was in the middle of the room, glaring daggers at Jack, and her eyes didn't shift away for a second. She did, however, crook a finger his direction, and Bozer accepted the invitation slash order and fully entered the room.

Jack was perched on the edge of the couch, clearly more to be on Matty's level than because he was lounging, and his expression wasn't much better. Bozer sent a quick wince over his shoulder to warn Riley, then got out of the way.

Neither Jack nor Matty said a word.

Riley also hesitated, but her own exhaustion trumped the tension in the room, and she slipped off her backpack and slung it – gently – onto one of the modular loveseats. "So . . . how was DC?"

Without taking his eyes off Matty, Jack replied. His tone was pretty light, all things considered. "Normal levels of bullshit. About yea high." He reached up his unencumbered left hand to touch his eyebrow, still without blinking. "Didn't get to drink anyone under the table, but the Krauts didn't declare war on us again, so basically a wash."

Matty's expression soured further, if that was possible, but she didn't let up on Jack for a single second. "Have a seat, you two. We have a couple things to discuss."

Wilt immediately found a seat and took it, glancing furtively at Riley as he set their bags on the floor. "So . . . uh . . . just getting back then?" It could explain why they were both so prickly –

"We got back last night," Matty informed them, her tone still sour. "Why don't you tell them what you've been doing since then, Jack?"

Jack didn't move a muscle. "Wouldn't wanna steal your thunder, _director_."

. . . oh boy.

Riley glanced at Bozer, her eyebrows bunched, then back at the clearly fuming pair. ". . . if you got back last night, why didn't you come join us in Grand Junction?"

Jack let out a chuckle that was more like a growl than anything else, but then he broke off the staring contest, and actually turned his head to take them both in. His expression softened a little at Riley's somewhat disheveled appearance. "Mac didn't look like he really wanted an audience. How's he doin'?"

"Uh . . . good." She still sounded a little unsure, and Wilt didn't blame her. They'd clearly just walked right into something, and if DC had gone well, and they got back yesterday evening, then why . . . ?

And in what universe would Jack Dalton pass up a chance to see Mac?

Riley was totally on his wavelength. "Are you sure DC went okay?"

Matty snorted, but finally released Jack from her best Hun-like stare, and stalked across the room to snatch up her tablet. "It went about as well as could be expected. The Germans lost seven men when that convoy exploded." Her acerbic tone slipped into something a little more business-like. "However, given the gravity of the situation and extenuating circumstances, all parties agreed it could have been much worse." She cast another dark look at Jack, which he pretended not to notice. "It's not the first beating we've taken, and it won't be the last."

Which didn't make it sound like it had gone all that well, either. And either way Jack was _definitely_ still in the doghouse.

But not letting him go and see Mac? That just seemed cruel and unusual. And Matty must have seen the disapproval on his face, because her sharp eyes cut to him. Reminding Wilt that he was sharing that doghouse with Jack, and on very thin ice himself. She hadn't said more than twenty words to him since scaring the living crap out of him in Medical. Bozer quickly arranged a polite and neutral expression on his face, and Matty regarded him silently for a few moments. Just when it was getting downright uncomfortable, she relented.

"But before we move on to what Jack's been up to – how's our boy _really_ doing?"

Bozer recognized a lifeline when one had been thrown to him. "He's, uh – he's alright." He glanced at Riley, who also nodded. "Yeah, he – he picked up on the gloves pretty quickly. He was usin' the word library when we left. Said he misses everybody."

Riley smirked a little. "Well, actually, his parting words were 'Angry, angry, bathroom'."

Wilt opened his mouth to explain, but Jack beat him to it. ". . . angry, angry . . . bathroom?" He blinked at them. "Like, hungry hungry hippo?"

Bozer rolled his eyes. "No, Jack." He held up his fist. "Mac was just sayin' goodbye, but he was still wearing the gloves an' we still had the vocal translation app open, so . . ." He mimed bumping an imaginary fist. "Angry angry bathroom."

Jack stared at them for another second in complete confusion , then burst out laughing. The tension in the room relaxed considerably; even Matty's stony expression cracked, just for a second.

"Now how in the world is that supposed to mean angry – wait, no, the fist, I get it." Jack was trying out the motion for himself. "But striking down is bathroom? Riles, I think you got some more work to do, honey, that don't make a lick of sense-"

She held up her hands. "Hey, I didn't assign words to gestures, that's someone else's system-"

"And we'll have to work on it later," Matty interrupted, suddenly back to business. "I know you're both tired, but you're getting back on the jet in thirty minutes. You two are going to Borneo."

"Borneo?" Riley was already fishing her laptop out of her pack.

"Y'mean you're finally giving us that vacation I been asking for for two years?" Bozer tried hopefully, but then subsided at her stern look.

"Only if you enjoy trading in illegal wildlife," she informed him drily. "You're headed to Mount Kinabalu, where you will pose as traders at a retreat being held there. Once on site, you will locate this couple-" and two pictures with bios popped up on the screens behind her, "and take them into custody."

Bozer studied the cheerful couple up on the screen. "You want us to arrest . . . a personal trainer and a yoga instructor?"

"I do, Bozer," she confirmed, without a trace of sarcasm. "Because Mr. and Mrs. Levy have a second job, which is trafficking in illegal wildlife." More pictures popped up, images that made Bozer grimace and Riley actually look away. Even Jack looked disgusted.

"Now why would anyone do that to an orangutan?"

"Weird religions, voodoo rituals, old traditions . . . same reason you kill a rhino for its horn, or an elephant for its tusks," Bozer told him. "People will spend millions on certain animal parts." Then he shuddered. "It's not our usual gig, but I am in a _thousand_ percent."

"Glad to hear it. And much as I want to put these two away for the damage they've done to endangered animals across the globe, that's not actually why you're collecting them."

Some of the things on the screen were absolutely unforgivable, and Bozer made another face, then averted his eyes. "They're doin' something _worse_?"

"The same rings that deal in the illegal animal trade also enable drug and human trafficking operations into Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore." The grotesque and horrific images vanished, replaced by a map of Borneo and surrounding islands. "Mr. and Mrs. Levy are going to give the Indonesian government their smuggling routes, and then a multi-national task force and navy will shut them all down."

"Making Singapore a hell of a lot less fun," Jack added, and Matty narrowed her eyes at him. Riley, meanwhile, was still studying the screen.

"Okay, so . . . we go in as a married couple?" Riley gestured between herself and Bozer. "What's Jack's cover?"

"Jack will be staying here and providing support from Ops." Matty's tone brooked no argument, and Bozer glanced between her and Jack again. Jack's expression didn't really change, and he didn't say a word. And suddenly the staring match they'd walked into a few minutes ago made perfect sense.

"The retreat is at a lodge near the summit of Mt. Kinabalu, and the only way up is a narrow hiking trail. Once you have the Levies in custody, you'll be extracted by helicopter."

Riley refused to let it slide. "But – if Jack's not coming . . . these people are both accomplished trophy hunters." She hesitated, then gestured at the screen, where the couple's bios were still displayed. "Sniper trained. If either one of them figures out who we are or what we're up to, and I'm sure they're going to bring a few toys if it's that kind of retreat –"

"You're absolutely correct," Matty agreed. "Which is exactly why Jack's not going." She then gave him a pointed glare, and Jack cleared his throat, and shifted his right arm in its sling.

"Can't make the hike with this collarbone." It was reluctant and clearly forced, but then he seemed to deflate a little bit, and Bozer realized it wasn't just Matty's prompting. "These two are too good to risk it, Riles. You'll meet your backup on the plane."

"Our backup?" Riley asked warily.

"Yeah." Same quiet voice. "Agents Alicia Wright and Tom Monnegar. They've already been briefed, and they're waitin' in the hangar."

"In the hangar," she echoed. Then she looked at Matty. "So . . . guides?"

Their director shook her head. "Neither have been to Borneo. If they work out and they're a good fit, they'll be joining the team on a semi-permanent basis."

"This team?" Riley still sounded oddly stilted, and Bozer was frankly amazed she could speak so calmly. He was unable to follow her lead.

"You mean, join _our_ team? Join _Mac's_ team?" He found himself on his feet, with no memory of how he'd gotten there. "Because it kinda sounds like you're sayin'-"

"That's exactly what I'm saying." She cut him off flat. "Right now you're two men down. I want you both to take the opportunity to get to know them, and how they work."

"To get to know them?" Bozer knew his voice was rising in pitch, but he didn't care. "Is that what happened in DC? Are you sayin' Mac's . . . Mac's not-"

"Easy, Boze." It was Jack, this time, that cut him off, and the drawl was prominent. "Nobody's sayin' anything like that. But Mac's gonna be laid up a while, and the world's still turnin', dude. We still got a job to do." He stabbed a finger in the direction of the screen. "I can't be there to have your backs, and I ain't sendin' you in there by yourselves. Monnegar and Wright are good agents. An' if you don't like 'em, nobody's gonna force you to work with 'em." Though his voice didn't shift timbre in any way, his eyes cut to Matty, and her expression very carefully didn't change.

This is what they'd been fighting about. Not about DC. About replacing Mac.

Bozer looked between the two of them in disbelief. "Oh, really? You mean that? If we don't like 'em, that's it, they're gone?"

"Of course." Matty said it like it was blindingly obvious. "Bozer, if you and Riley can't or won't work with Alicia and Tom, then it puts all four of your lives in jeopardy. High-performing teams like this one function on complete and total trust and cooperation. They _have_ to if any of you are going to come home alive. But they also have to be comprised of individuals with the skillsets needed to accomplish the missions. This isn't a social club, and you're not twelve years old anymore, so suck it up. Lives are on the line."

For just a second, he felt like a dick, and Bozer stopped to take a breath. "I know lives are on the line, Matty, but-"

"There's no buts. I've already delayed this operation twenty-four hours."

Meaning she'd delayed sending them so they could spend the time with Mac.

She glanced back at the screen. "You'll have seventeen hours on the plane to sleep and to get to know your fellow agents. Your equipment has already been packed."

He knew how monumental that was, how unlikely she was to delay a mission like that for anyone else. But he couldn't dig up one single shred of gratitude. The decision had been made. They were going to move on with new agents, go on ops with new teammates. Him and Riley and two strangers, and Jack stuck in his ear.

Bozer looked to Riley for support, and she gave him a very subtle shake of her head, and a not so subtle, deliberate blink.

Just like Mac.

 _No._

He didn't know what that meant. No, don't make a stink? No, I don't like it either? No, we're not going to accept stand-ins? If Jack was cowed –

Bozer found himself looking to Jack next, expecting fire, expecting some set of his shoulders or jaw that would tell him that Jack had a plan, had a way to get them out of this, and Jack returned his look impassively. Dead neutral.

Nothing. Even in that hallway in the hospital in Amsterdam, when Jack told him it was his decision and his alone, the man had given him _something._ Sympathy. Support. An indication that everything was gonna be okay, no matter what.

Now he had nothing.

"Well? Get the lead out!"

Almost woodenly, he crossed to the door in the back of the room, held it open as Riley re-shouldered her backpack and gave Jack a quick farewell nod, that the man returned. He hadn't even waited for the door to close before he turned on Riley.

She headed him off before he could say a word. "Bozer, _shut up,"_ she hissed softly. "It's better than disbanding the team completely."

He matched her volume as they marched back down the hall. "There _is_ no team without Mac! It's Mac's team!"

"Really? So what the hell am I, chopped liver?"

Bozer gaped at her a second. "Riley, you know what I mean!"

"I do. But look. The easier we can make it to keep us all together, the easier it'll be to make the argument to bring him back." She yanked some hair out from under a backpack strap as they reached the door to the parking lot. "If he even _wants_ to come back," he thought he heard her mutter as he pushed it open.

"What the hell are you talking about?" It was hard to remember to whisper. "Of course he'll want to come back! This is all he's done since he got back from the Army!"

"Bozer-"

"No, you _saw_ him, Riley! You _saw_ him usin' those gloves!" There was a car waiting for them – the exact same car that had just driven them from the hangar ten minutes ago – and Wilt held up one finger at the driver.

 _Give us a minute._

Riley opened her mouth, then closed it with a frown. "Yeah, Bozer, I did. I did see him. Look. Let's just get through this op, and when we get back, let's talk to Jack and see what he thinks."

"I already know what Jack thinks-"

Riley shook her head, then walked around him, towards the waiting car. "Yeah, but maybe he knows something we don't."

-M-

It took Angus MacGyver a hair under three hours to call her out.

The time wasn't consecutive, of course. She was sure he'd been having his doubts for over a week. Pretty much as soon as the depression had made itself known. He tolerated her explanation, that they needed a baseline, that this was SOP for someone who'd been in a coma as long as he had, for a patient who had developed seizures, for a patient who had suffered neurogenic shock. The first day he could barely stay awake long enough to protest, no more than forty-five minutes at a stretch, and she limited him to practice with the word library.

Despite the fact that he now had hundreds of words at his disposal, he essentially stuck to yes no answers. The only addition was 'good.' He felt good. He felt good during his physical therapy, he felt good about his mood, his environment was good, everything was good. If they'd added a gesture shortcut for a phrase like 'get on with it already' she was pretty sure he'd be using that instead.

It wasn't until day two that she let him actually start interacting with the applications. She'd carefully tailored the order to reinforce the cover story. Tests that appeared to be simple vision and comprehension tests, getting her baselines. Making sure he still understood perspective, knew his shapes, that his eyesight was still 20/20, and that he wasn't colorblind.

He cooperated until they hit a game that was masquerading as a hearing test. Simple enough premise, basically Simon Says with four colored blocks that had to be tapped when a certain tone and pitch was heard. Actually testing reflex and response time by measuring contraction of the pupil in response to signals received from the temporal lobe of his brain. She didn't care if he could carry a tune in a bucket – she wanted to know how effective those new neural pathways leading from his brainstem were.

And the answer was relatively effective, because after about three minutes of the game, an annoyed expression crossed his face, and he ceased interacting with the program.

She gave him a bland look. "Is something wrong?"

He stared at her without blinking. "Yes."

"Are you in pain?"

"No. Bad test."

It was the first time he'd used either of those words, and she gave him a second to reconsider. He didn't correct himself, meaning he'd chosen the words deliberately.

"You don't like the test?"

"No. Bad test."

"You don't like the way you're scoring?"

His look became more stony, if that was possible. "No no no no no. Bad test."

She'd caught on very quickly, that in lieu of communicating via pitch, timbre, and volume, he simply repeated words to give them emphasis. He was being exceedingly clear, and he knew that she knew what he was trying to tell her.

They hadn't gotten as far as she wanted, but his trust was more important at this point in his recovery. Parsons gave him a long look, and he surprised her by using the gloves to speak again.

"Bad doctor."

It almost made her laugh. "Can you tell me why you said that?"

The word library was limited to a few hundred words because frankly, a patient – even a relatively competent one like MacGyver – couldn't remember all the gestures necessary for anything more complex. Right now he had a few dozen shortcut gestures at his disposal, most of which he wasn't using, and none of them were going to help him with this conversation. He knew it, and he transferred his glare from her to the screen, using the pointer to scroll down his available vocabulary list, the words he could access one at a time, rather than by shortcut gesture.

It took him a little while to assemble the sentence. "Say bad thing you no want." Broken English aside, he could not have been any more direct.

"We haven't gotten through enough testing yet."

He narrowed his eyes. "No test."

Parsons cocked her head. "You're refusing to continue testing?"

"Yes." His eyes cut back to the monitor and he selected his previous sentence from the list. "Say bad thing you no want."

It wasn't the first time he'd demonstrated an understanding of negotiation, but it was the first time he'd initiated one. "It will have an impact on your scoring. Do you understand?"

"Yes. Say bad thing you no want."

She had a feeling that was going to become one of his favorite phrases. "I told you before. These tests are standard for patients who have experienced injuries like yours. As you've suspected for a while now, you suffered a brain injury beyond the neurogenic shock. During emergency surgery, you had a stroke. The damage was most severe in your brain stem, which is the part of the brain that connects it to the rest of your body. Do you understand?"

The glare flickered, but he didn't look away. "Yes."

"You also experienced hypoxia, which is lack of oxygen to the brain, and to some extent the rest of your body. This has exacerbated the neurogenic shock, and because of your behavior upon waking, I'm concerned it may have damaged portions of your brain that store and access short and long-term memory, and regulate your sleep."

He lay quite still, digesting all of that, and she lost his eyes for a moment. But otherwise he didn't respond. His pulse and respiration remained stable, he didn't tear up or appear emotional in any way. He simply considered the information she'd given him, and she gave him all the time he wanted. Once he shifted on the bed, trying to push himself up a little straighter, she continued.

"Now that you know this, you're going to be much more critical of your scores. Which is exactly what I don't want you to do." She picked up her tablet and exited him out of his game, taking control of the screen above him. She put up a series of simple line graphs. "The first graph is showing you the cognitive performance of mathematicians before and after sleep deprivation. The green line shows their performance when rested, the red line shows the impact after twenty-four hours without sleep. The blue line shows their performance after forty-eight hours without sleep." Even a child could discern the marked decline in their scores. "Because of the medication you're taking, and the injury you're recovering from, your brain is operating at equivalent levels. Do you understand?"

He studied the data only a few seconds. "Yes."

She toggled to her next set of evidence. "Here is the same type of testing on astronauts who are prevented from exercising, over the course of two weeks." She'd used the same color scheme – green for active astronauts, red after being cooped up for a week, blue after being cooped up for two. The performance trend wasn't as marked as with the mathematicians – sleep was far more important than physical activity as far as higher brain function was concerned – but it was definitely there. "Do you understand?"

She had barely gotten the sentence out before the second yes came over of the speakers.

"I need you to take this seriously," she admonished him. "Brain injury or not, your baseline isn't going to be anywhere close to where it would have been two months ago."

He wasn't glaring anymore, at least not like he had been, but it was pretty clear from his expression alone that it wasn't sinking in, at least at an emotional level. She went on to the third graph.

"This one should look familiar, you would have seen it in basic training." It was an older military study done on the cognitive and physical performance of soldiers with concussions, by severity. "The generalized damage caused by the hypoxia can mimic that of a concussion. The good news is, the occipital lobe of the brain is extremely sensitive to anoxic injury, and your vision doesn't seem to be impaired. Nor your hearing. It's too early to test your coordination or speaking ability, but we can and have been testing your hippocampus, which is key to short and long term memory function. So far you've been performing above average for a patient with your injuries."

He accepted the reassurance with the same non-reaction as the rest of the information, and even went so far as to wave his left hand, clearing the graphs off the screen and taking it back to the main menu of tests. He stared at it without seeming to see it, and finally she saw a slight uptick in his blood pressure, and his pulse soon followed.

Anxiety and low level stress. So he _was_ having an emotional response, and he was fighting it tooth and nail. He didn't want her to see.

"Now do you understand why I didn't tell you?"

He turned away at that, looking towards his right, and she wasn't sure if he was doing some creative thinking, or simply avoiding looking at her.

"MacGyver."

She didn't regain his eyes.

"MacGyver, are you all right?"

His pulse increased another few beats per minute, but he never faltered in his utterly steady breathing pattern.

"I know that's a lot to take in, but as I said earlier, you're doing very well. We'll resume testing tomorrow, when you've had a chance to think, and to ask questions."

His left hand twitched, then curled into a loose fist. "No. Angry." The second he heard the computer speak, he flattened his hand, and the voice program betrayed him again. "Pain. I don't know."

This time he didn't glare at her – he glared at the screen, then used his right hand to move the pointer towards the voice program's exit button. If he did have any questions, he definitely didn't want to ask them right now.

But then he stopped, with the pointer hovering over the exit button. He didn't click it; instead, he stared hard at the screen, then edged the pointer a little shakily off the exit button, onto the voice program's background. It was a fairly standard governmental background image, with the Phoenix Foundation logo front and center, and he teased the pointer over the stylized bird's eye. A small white box, previously invisible, highlighted, and MacGyver pinched his thumb and forefinger together to make the pointer click the box.

A new menu appeared directly over her own software, like it had opened a new window. She didn't recognize the layout of it, but he apparently did, because he stared at it a second, then moved the pointer down to 'Welcome To The Warp Zone,' and clicked it.

A window popped up, in the classic Super Mario Brothers style, and Mario jumped across the green pipes, skipping directly to Level 8 with the 'whomp whomp whomp' sound of a secret tunnel. The screen went black and quiet, and then a voice spoke, and it was anything but a classic video game sound effect.

"I figured you'd get impatient," a young woman announced smugly, as the layout changed to a very video game-esque option selection map. "Just remember, Mac, skipping to the boss battle when you haven't leveled up doesn't usually end well."

The voice was almost certainly MacGyver's fellow agent, Riley Davis. Simone wasn't sure how she'd embedded the software, but in the end it didn't really matter. The screen had a variety of thumbnails, and they weren't hard to figure out. One was Einstein's famous energy and mass formula, one was a cartoon owl wearing spectacles, one looked like a Rubix cube and another a piano keyboard. There were eight of them all in all, each representing a skill or area of the brain that her own software was testing, and MacGyver stared at the screen for a long moment.

That he'd known where to look for a hidden menu shouldn't have surprised her – he'd already demonstrated that large swathes of his memory were still intact. He edged the pointer towards the mathematical formula thumbnail, but then he hesitated.

"She's right, you know," Simone told him quietly. There was no putting this genie back in the bottle; if she took the device away, he would lose the ability to 'speak,' and at this point that setback would be devastating. And she wasn't even certain she was angry about it. The only portion of his journey that she could control was when it was going to start. And she'd kicked that off by letting them bring this device into the hospital in the first place, letting him test himself even before he was weaned off the ventilator. She needed to know the depth of the damage as soon as possible, while he was still a patient in her care. His test scores, the impact of the damage - it was always going to look worse than it actually was.

And he was never going to be satisfied with his performance. Even if he went at her pace.

But she wasn't lying about his baselines. She could see the data in real time on her own tablet, and his results so far were promising. Obviously these new 'games' weren't using her software, but the room cameras and the scalp sensors were still on him. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but she'd still get plenty of data.

Even so, this kind of failure right now, as depressed and frightened as he was, would put him at rock bottom. And it was far too early to know how resilient he was. If he could recover from something like that.

"You were in a coma for weeks, MacGyver. You haven't stood or walked in almost two months. I won't stop you, but without question, you _will_ underperform. Do you understand?"

He'd laid his right hand flat on the bed, keeping it absolutely still as he stared at the screen. It took him a moment to gather his nerves, but then he tapped his forefinger and thumb together, and launched the Einstein equation game.

It was fairly simple, and it was less a game than it was an SAT-style standardized test. It was a mathematical problem with four multiple choice answers. And despite the voiceover telling him that he was skipping right to the boss battle, the equation was a fairly simple one. High school algebra.

There didn't appear to be a timer, which was good, just the problem and four possible solutions, and MacGyver studied the screen a moment before he inched the pointer over to the same answer Simone would have picked, and clicked.

The test gave him no indication of whether or not he'd been correct, but a box appeared in the upper right-hand corner. **1-10.**

The equations got harder as he progressed, but it was still maybe two hundred level college mathematics by the time he got to ten of ten. Once he chose that last answer, he was taken to a review page, where he was permitted to go back to check the answers to previous questions. The option didn't seem to faze him, he simply selected 'Continue.'

A big green checkmark appeared. After a few seconds, it immediately went on to another set of ten questions. These were harder, differential equations and stuff she hadn't had to take even in pre-med. The answers were also much more complex, including imaginary numbers and trig. By the time he got to question five of the set, there were more Greek symbols on the screen than Roman.

She realized he was having problems when the metronome pattern with the ventilator broke down. He no longer had the ability to concentrate on that and do the math, and when the machine actually triggered, for once, and forced an inhalation, he actually jerked in the bed.

"Are you all right?"

He glanced at her, then back at the screen, and took a couple deep breaths. But he didn't use the software to say anything, and she didn't offer to take him off the ventilator.

Task saturation was an excuse he might permit, if he wasn't able to complete this round.

And he wasn't, not perfectly. He got through all the questions, but when it came time to grade, he apparently got two wrong. The software took him back to the questions to give him a second chance, and he glared at the screen, then all but rolled his eyes and selected an answer that was the same as the one he'd originally chosen, but with two variables swapped.

Just like he'd confused his name, MacGyver vs MacGvyer.

The other problem he'd legitimately gotten wrong, the correct answer wasn't even close to the one he'd chosen, and he studied that one for quite a while before he got it right.

Simone was about to step in and suggest he'd done enough when a voice beat her to it, coming out of the speakers.

"Okay, Mac, that's enough stoichiometry for one day. Why don't you move on to something else?"

The voice was that of his roommate, Mr. Power of Attorney. So he'd been in on Ms. Davis's little insurrection.

MacGyver ignored it, clicking on 'Continue,' but the message repeated, letting them both know it was a recording, and then the software dumped him back to the main menu of games.

"You should take a break," she advised him, and he obstinately moved the pointer to the Rubix cube and clicked.

This was definitely a game, and it was very straightforward. It was literally a three dimensional Rubix cube on an invisible axis. Not only would it test his ability to accurately recognize colors, which she was quite certain by now that he could do, but also his comprehension of three-dimensional space and his puzzle solving skills. It did, however, require him to use both hands at the same time.

Parsons didn't say anything else, letting him decide whether or not he wanted to continue, and after he also concluded that this was a two-handed operation, he practiced rotating the cube a few times before he actually attempted to solve it.

It didn't go well.

At first she couldn't tell whether it was a manipulation issue, or he legitimately couldn't keep track of the six sides of the cube. He spun the cube quickly enough, but he wasn't selecting the correct row or column to twist. She saw him backtrack a few times, but more often than not he was turning the cube beyond its previous position before he was able to modify the row. His frustration was plain to hear; his breathing pattern was utterly unmoderated, rapid and shallow, and his heart rate was elevated close to his physical therapy levels.

She let it go on a good ten minutes before she spoke. "MacGyver. Take a break."

He didn't give any indication that he heard her. He did, however, spin the cube a few times without making any changes, inspecting each side several times. He took a deliberate, deep breath off the ventilator, and then, finally, he looked at her, and she could see how overwhelmed he felt. He was close to giving up.

Rather than use the software to say it, he reached up his left hand, and touched the ventilator tube. Then he made a sideways motion that the voice program was able to interpret.

"Out."

She studied him, rather than her tablet, which was only telling her what she could readily see with her own eyes. "MacGyver, it's okay to stop for today. It's not a race. You're not winning or losing here."

He tapped the blue plastic tube again, a little more urgently. "Out."

"Do you really think it's going to make any difference?" she asked him softly.

He blinked a few times, taking another deep breath, then looked back at the screen, where his Rubix cube was slowly rotating.

"I don't know," the voice program said, and he didn't correct it.

After giving him a few moments to say something else – which he didn't – she stood up, and gently disconnected the tube. She transferred his oxygen line to the nebulizer like they always did, and tapped the panel on the front of the ventilator to make sure it stayed silent. Her patient took a deep breath, closing his lips around the end of the tube as best he could, and held it for a few seconds. He let it out by degrees, and she realized he was attempting a breathing exercise.

He was trying to calm himself.

He did it a few times, his eyes closed, extending each breath by a few seconds, and she saw the results on the panel above his head. Blood pressure and pulse were starting to come down. When he opened his eyes again, there was still uncertainty and fatigue there, but a little less desperation. He watched the cube rotate another few times, simply breathing.

Then he tried again.

Unfortunately, nothing changed. He simply didn't have the dexterity to manipulate the three dimensional object. Even if he could see what it was he wanted to do, he wasn't able to consistently accomplish it, and after a few minutes, any good his little self-soothing session had done was out the window.

He was close to tears by the time he finally gave up, swiping his right hand angrily across his body to send the cube wildly spinning. He turned away from her, to his right, and Simone let him, and didn't say a word. It took him a little while to get a handle on his breathing after that, and he kept his eyes tightly closed the entire time.

It was up to him to find his limit, and to decide when he'd had enough. As painful as it was to watch him fail, potentially not because he couldn't solve the problem but because he was physically exhausted, it was a process that she had to let him work through on his own.

The cube had returned to its default, slow spin by the time he recovered, and when he opened his eyes, he looked a little less angry, and a lot more annoyed. This time, he moved his hands extremely deliberately, working at a snail's pace. He stopped the cube often, taking his time, and the look of sheer determination - and annoyance - never left his face.

He also never hesitated. Though he was working painfully slowly, the cube was always in motion, and he was twenty moves in by the time she realized that he'd already solved it. He might have solved it before she'd taken him off the ventilator. His frustration was wholly to do with his inability to manipulate the object at the speed he wanted.

And it seemed like he'd finally figured that out for himself. He kept at it doggedly, through another twenty or so shifts, and finally even she could see the solution. When he'd given it its last twist, and every side of the cube was now a uniform color, the Rubix cube flashed brightly and fireworks appeared on the background behind it while a little victory tune played. Parsons looked back at her patient to find him staring at the screen, silently weeping.

There was no triumph on his face, no pride, no sense of accomplishment. And as soon as he realized she was looking at him, he closed his eyes and physically turned his face away from her.

"Are you in pain?" His vitals were still elevated, but his breathing was dead steady, and he surprised her by answering her, and slowly shaking his head no. Though his eyes remained closed, tears continued streaming down his face.

But his hands weren't balled up into fists; they were relaxed in their bright orange gloves. His shoulders were settling into a neutral position, no longer hiked up with tension and anger. It wasn't just fatigue, his posture wasn't simply wrung out and exhausted. It wasn't defeat, or despair. He was actually letting himself relax.

Loosening his grip on himself. Which was why he was crying, and why he'd turned his face away.

"This is relief," she said aloud, just to make sure that he knew. And after a few seconds, he physically nodded his head, just a little.

It was bone-deep, overwhelming relief. He had his answers. He knew, now, what had happened to him, and he had confirmed that the aspect of himself that was most important to him – which was apparently his intellect – was intact. Or at least intact enough. The next few weeks were going to be difficult, he wasn't going to be any more patient with himself than he'd been today, but at least now he had a reason to open his eyes in the morning. A reason to keep trying.

Parsons glanced past the foot of the bed, then stood and crossed to the cabinets at the back of the room. Almost every time any of his caretakers went to that side of the room, they came back with drugs, but he didn't protest as she returned. He simply turned his head back in her direction and opened his watering blue eyes, preparing himself for what he probably thought was going to be an enforced nap.

But she hadn't gotten any medication, and she had no intention of sedating him. Instead, Simone used the tissue in her hand to gently wipe his face. "Whenever I cry when I'm lying on my back, I get tears in my ears," she told him matter-of-factly.

He blinked when the tissue got close to his eyes, but then he turned his face towards her a little, so she could mop up the right side as well. His exhale had a little shaky tremble to it that might have been a half-hearted chuckle.

"Would you like to be left alone for a little while?"

He waited until she'd finished wiping his face before giving her another physical nod, but he didn't open his eyes again, and she smoothed her hand over his forehead, gently straightening the lines running off his scalp sensors.

"Okay. Nurse Wanda will come by in a little while to hook the ventilator back up."

-M-

A few of you have asked if I plotted this thing out in its entirety from the very beginning, and the answer is sort of. There were certain things I knew were going to happen, and would tie into previous scenes. However, both last chapter and this chapter, the characters disagreed with what I had planned for them, which is why these two chapters took so long. We did finally get to where I wanted to be, but we sort of took a roundabout way of getting here.

So, in summary, Riley has some doubts about how well Mac's really doing, and they only get reinforced when she and Bozer return from the hospital only to get sent on a mission with new teammates. Mac has the same doubts about how well he's really doing, so he called Parsons out and gave her no choice but to tell him what happened to him. For better or for worse, Riley had built some of her own tests into her communication device, and Mac found the clue and secret games she left him.

So if any of you still had any doubts about whether or not Mac was still in there, and had any chance of recovery, this chapter should put those doubts to rest. He's in there. He's not super thrilled about it at the moment, but he's in there.

Please forgive any typos; this chapter was not sent through my lovely beta because she's on a Super Secret Mission™.


	33. Chapter 33

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

 **FOUR DAYS LATER**

"Handsome, you are worse than a ten year old, you know that?"

He didn't dare take his eyes off the screen, lest an errant twitch of clumsy hands erase all his hard work, and he only kept half an ear on the nurse as she bustled around the room. Expanding his vocabulary of words manually was like trying to use a Nintendo Power Glove to type on an XBox virtual keyboard, and it was beyond mind-numbingly slow. When he was finished typing 'finish,' ironically enough, Mac glanced at the clock, noting that close to an hour had passed.

Wanda was definitely going to give him flak.

"Am I gonna have to start taking your chargers away? That's what we do with my niece."

Mac tried to imagine Diane doing that to Riley. No wonder she always had backups. Then he twitched his left hand, and his temporary 'voice' answered her. "No."

The nurse cocked an eyebrow at him, slipping on a pair of latex gloves. "Oh really? Because I'm pretty sure you agreed to limited video game time if we would leave the gloves on during business hours."

'Business hours' meant pretty much any time he was awake enough to want to communicate anything more complicated than yes or no, and that _was_ the agreement, and he _was_ adhering to it, so Mac used his right hand to access the custom vocabulary of words he'd been curating.

"Making content."

The nurse's other eyebrow rose to match the first one. "I see," and she made a big production of looking sarcastically impressed, putting her hands on her hips. "Someone's feeling his oats this morning."

MacGyver stopped to wonder if oats were legitimately an ingredient in the liquid nutrition solution, in that it would satiate hunger for a bedridden patient in the same manner as for an infant, but then he discarded the idea. Too much fiber.

And made a reluctant mental note to add the word 'constipated' to the word library.

Wanda continued to pin him with her favorite fondly disapproving look. "Oh? No more backtalk?"

He should probably create a whole subsection of vocabulary for that –

The nurse relented, and approached his bedside, checking the displays that were still irritatingly out of his field of vision. "Remember, handsome, you gotta take a good, deep breath for me every once in a while, okay?"

He did so, as deep as he could, far beyond when the tickle in his lungs became legitimate pain. As before, the first cough was reflexive, and he did his best to assist. Edema and fluid build-up were to be expected after so much time on mechanical ventilation, and the very last thing he wanted to do was get a lung infection and have to be intubated again.

 _Ever_ again.

The pain was nothing like broken ribs, it was way more immediate, higher, and it seemed to have a flavor to it. He wasn't sure if he was tasting mucus in the back of his throat or if it was leftover lubricant from the tube, but it wasn't blood, and it burned like bile. The nurse frowned sympathetically as his brief coughing fit subsided, but she didn't touch him.

"Can you swallow for me?"

While coughing seemed reflexive, his esophagus had forgotten everything it ever knew about functioning. He tried, and he thought he felt his Adam's apple twitch, but there was none of the ache of the last time he'd managed an actual swallow, and her frown softened.

"Try again? The more you practice the faster it'll all come back."

Atrophied muscles were atrophied muscles, which he knew she knew well, but he tried again, with about the same results. The nurse slipped the stethoscope from around the back of her neck. "Okay, let's just see how much fluid you have in there."

He could feel the pressure and chill of the metal as she moved it gently over his chest, and he did his best not to cough and deafen her. She used the bed to lean him slightly more upright, and he helped as much as he could as she murmured apologies and made him sit up, so she could get to his back. He had to lean heavily against her shoulder, his core muscles couldn't quite hold him up, and for the first time in recent memory, he smelled something. Her perfume.

Or maybe soap, it stood to reason nurses probably couldn't wear perfume, not with allergy concerns among the patients –

It smelled like candles and something sweet, he could detect it even around the nasal cannula, and then his nostrils tingled, and he sneezed.

Coughing hurt, but it couldn't hold a candle to sneezing. He only did it once, tasting that same burning flavor in his mouth, and he would have groaned if he could have. The pain was bad enough to trigger a weak gag reflex, and he managed an uncoordinated swallow instead.

He didn't remember leaning back, he didn't remember letting go of the nurse. He opened his eyes to find himself back against his pile of pillows, heaving in shallow breaths, with the nurse hovering, speaking to him.

"Your first sneeze! I'm so proud."

He knew it was a distraction technique, and he appreciated it, giving her what he hoped was a tight-lipped smile as he rode out the startlingly sharp wave of pain. His face, particularly his cheeks and lips, felt weirdly fatigued and numb, and probably all he'd managed was a grimace. Whatever face he made at her, the nurse's sympathetic smile didn't falter, and she patted his left shoulder, giving him another sensation to focus on.

"I know that didn't feel good, handsome, but it did you good just the same. You keep those lungs clear, and I'll keep that BiPap in the drawer, okay?"

A threat if ever he'd heard one. He nodded, pleased that he could do so without discomfort, now, and concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths. The pain eased relatively quickly, and he opened his eyes and gave Wanda, who was standing right next to the machine that controlled, for example, how much dilaudid he was getting, a very suspicious look.

She batted her heavily lined eyes at him. "You're welcome."

The phrase 'thank you' had been weirdly absent from his original vocabulary list, and he'd added it a couple days ago, including adding a shortcut gesture for it. He held her gaze and didn't use it, and a broad grin spread across her face.

"You know you love me," she told him, then patted him on the shoulder one more time before she turned back to her cart. MacGyver made another face, then reached up his left hand to find out if he had, in fact, launched a half-congealed ball of snot onto his nasal cannula. She clucked her tongue at him, attacking him with a tissue, and he pressed his head further back into the pillows to escape her, trying to tug the tissue away. She let him have it without a fight.

"Listen, handsome, if you're well enough to wipe your own nose, then what am I supposed to do all day?"

It was more difficult than it should have been to pick his own nose, but it felt great to be the person touching his face for a change. "I don't know," the computer stated, on his behalf.

"Huh," she commented in her best faux offended voice. "Well I can see that I'm not wanted."

He was pretty sure he'd added the words 'true' and 'false' to the word library, and as soon as he was done with the tissue, she took it from him, and he started scrolling through the list to assemble the sentence he wanted.

"It's not that serious, handsome," she admonished gently. "Why don't you take a break and get a little rest?"

"No." The gesture was out of his fingers before he even thought about it. He redirected his scrolling efforts to more important words. "Not tired."

She cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him, and he frowned – this time on purpose – and went hunting again. "Not enough drugs." Meaning she hadn't given him enough painkillers to knock him out.

Wanda barked out a surprised laugh, glancing up at his screen as he started assembling a new sentence. "Oh, what, you need to stay awake so you can add more lip to your program there?"

"Yes." It was unfortunate that the voice program wasn't advanced enough to add nuance, like humor or sarcasm, but he figured Riley and Bozer had put it together pretty quickly, and honestly he barely had the dexterity to use it the way it was meant to be used, let alone control the complexity necessary to truly represent what he meant. Stephen Hawking had learned to convey sarcasm with his word choice and facial expressions, and as soon as he could trust his own –

As soon as he could _move_ his own face, he could probably mouth the words. Even when sneezing, he hadn't made a sound through his vocal chords. Getting his real voice back, that was going to take a while. But whispering was only a cooperative tongue away. And it, like his esophagus, didn't seem to remember how to do anything. He could barely stick it out, and he was probably lucky he could even do that. It didn't seem to be able to taste much, either, besides bitter and salt. Wanda told him the oral disinfectant they were using to keep his teeth and gums healthy and hydrated tasted like lemon, but all he could really detect was a vague tang. Running the tip of his tongue over his teeth was presently impossible.

MacGyver focused back on the screen, and stared at the words he'd highlighted. What was he going to say again?

Stupid painkillers made it hard to think.

He gave her another deeply suspicious look, but this time she was at least an arm's length from the machine in question, and she chose to be the bigger person, and ignore the accusation he was implying. "Well, your PT will be starting soon, so get a few last words typed in before I take those lovely accessories off your hands."

Last words.

He knew she didn't mean last words as in, the last words he'd ever use, as opposed to however many he could enter within the time limit, but the phrase still caught his attention. Last words.

He couldn't remember his last words.

The way they looked at him, those words must have been . . . awful. Or maybe trite. People gave a lot of significance to the last time they spoke to someone before that person died. More emphasis than they should. Because most of the time, people didn't know when they were going to die. So their last words could simply have been the last thing on a shopping list. A throwaway joke. An angry retort.

He didn't know.

He remembered thinking about it. He remembered the Mariana Trench, a submarine, a bedroom. He remembered knowing that he was going to die, but he couldn't recall what it meant. What he'd actually said.

Those words, whatever they had been, weren't the most important words. He had hundreds of words in his voice application, millions of them in his head. They way they all looked at him, he should have thought about it. From their point of view. Said the words he _wanted_ to be the most important, instead of whatever he'd left them with.

Almost left them with.

MacGyver followed Nurse Wanda with his eyes, and signed the gesture. "Thank you."

The nurse took it in stride, she didn't see his face, too absorbed with her cart and her job. "You're welcome, handsome. I'll be right back." She was around the curtain without ever looking at his face.

He'd programmed the word 'wait' but he knew he couldn't scroll to the bottom of the alphabet in time, so he didn't. He heard the lock click, heard her cart wheel almost silently out, heard the door close. Leaving him alone with his screen, at least for another few minutes.

Mac glanced back up at it, staring at the last phrase he'd 'said.' Thank you.

He needed to remember to say it to Riley, and Bozer, and Jack if he came again. Now that he was off the ventilator, as soon as the testing was complete, he hoped he'd be transferred to someplace closer to them. They'd talked about being on a plane, he remembered Jack and Bozer telling him where he was, but the memory was fuzzy, and Mac hunted around his blankets for the hacky sack Jack had given him. The proof that Jack had been there at all.

It was still there, the nurse always made sure it was set aside when they changed his sheets, and Mac left it by his right hip and focused back on the keyboard. There was a word he needed to add . . .

Right. Transfer.

And 'home'. So that he could ask.

He got through them both, and was trying to remember the other word he'd wanted to add, before his door quietly clicked, and presumably Wanda came back in. So it turned out his last words were 'transfer home.' Those were good words. He constructed the correct sentence as the nurse did something on the other side of his curtain.

"When can I transfer home."

The voice didn't really do punctuation, or inflection, but he figured it was obvious it was a question, and sure enough, his bleached blonde nurse came around the curtain, carrying something he couldn't quite see in her right hand.

"Oh, handsome, I don't know," she told him, sympathy thick in her voice. "We just got you off the ventilator, I don't think Dr. Parsons is going to let you go until you're up and walking the halls, and that's gonna be a hot minute."

That was going to be another damn month, at his current rate of progress. He could barely feel pressure on his shins, now, and he could bend his knees and toes a little, but everything below his waist was still discouragingly numb.

And achy.

But all thoughts of aches went out the window when the nurse placed a cloth pet carrier on the bed. So PT involved a furry partner today.

Wanda came around to his right side, not yet opening the carrier. "Let's get these gloves off before Dora decides they'd make a good chew toy."

Though he was loathe to part with them – and his ability to speak – Mac let her tug them gently off his hands. Because she was right. The little furball was a menace, and she'd have Bozer's gloves shredded in less than five minutes. Which, on one hand, might get him another visit with them . . . but on the other, these were probably prototypes and it would be no small effort to make another pair.

He felt another pang of guilt as he watched Wanda carefully lay them flat on top of the small white box of cameras, sitting on a melamine board literally clamped to the end of his bed. So much effort, to give him a voice. He needed to be more thoughtful about how he was using it.

"Incoming," she warned him, then unzipped the front of the carrier, and a noticeably dusky little face peeked out before Metrodora pounced the pile of blankets immediately in front of her. Mac agreeably grabbed the hacky sack, glad he'd gotten a previous location on it, and he sent it rolling across his legs. The Siamese kitten flew across his legs, full body tackled the hacky sack, executed a perfect somersault, and rolled right off the edge of the bed.

Mac reached for her as soon as he realized it was going to happen, but he was far too late to catch her, and pain shot through his chest like electricity. He managed to keep his cry to the barest of exhales – another benefit of being able to breathe for himself, and not having a working voice box – and he thought he might have gotten away with it, since the nurse was also distracted making a grab for the falling kitten. She hadn't been close enough either, and was bent out of sight for a moment, but then his privacy curtain started twitching, and Dora bought him a few seconds to get his pain under control before the nurse reappeared.

The kitten seemed none the worse for wear, clutching the hacky sack with three of her paws and trying to eviscerate it with the fourth, and Wanda shook her head as she placed the balled up kitten securely back on the bed, then came around to raise the bedrails. They kept them down most of the time – "Not like you can escape, handsome," Wanda had told him once, and it was true – and changing that up looked like the right call, as the kitten promptly rolled against the left one, locked in battle with the rice-stuffed toy.

The nurse examined the kitten for a moment, then transferred her examination to her patient, and her eyes strayed to the displays he couldn't see before they narrowed slightly. "That was quite the move there. You okay?"

He returned her look, then stared pointedly at his gloves, which were luckily still safe. Wanda was not impressed.

"You have eyelids, and I know they work fine."

He blinked twice, but she still came over and unsnapped the front of his gown, taking a look at the bandages. Which was silly, even if he'd popped a stitch it wasn't as if it would have bled through yet. But it was still sharp, much deeper pain than his sneeze earlier, and he wasn't completely sure that he _hadn't_ actually torn something.

"Physical therapy is not supposed to involve shortstop training," she told him, gently massaging the muscles on the periphery of the injury, and he was pretty sure he managed a wince. She winced too, in solidarity, but she didn't stop what she was doing.

She never did. Her job wasn't to spare him pain; it was to make him better, and he did the best he could not to make that job harder on her.

"Just relax, handsome, let me get these knots out." She shot him a playful smile as she worked. "Guess you're two for one today."

His physical therapy rotated between two days of stretches and exercises, one day of massage, and one day of rest. The rest day, near as he could tell, could also be a kitten attack day. But kitten days had also happened during stretching days. He hadn't quite figured out the pattern yet.

He wasn't even entirely sure he was supposed to.

There was a clock on the wall, but he didn't trust it, any more than he trusted the windows. Sometimes they told him good morning or good afternoon, but those greetings were essentially meaningless, he had no real concept of date or time of day. He might as well have developed narcolepsy, he fell asleep in the middle of his own thoughts sometimes, and without urges like hunger or a need to urinate, he had no internal measurement of time that he could use.

But there _were_ certain things of which he was absolutely certain. They preferred to approach him on his left, which is where most of the equipment was, and the longest route between the door and his bed. Since it was terribly inefficient for his caretakers, he had to assume there was a reason, and he had to assume that reason was to give him a chance to wake up and see them approaching. Which was probably why he had privacy curtains around him when he knew for a fact he was the only patient in the room. All to make it clear that nothing could sneak up on him or startle him.

Since flinching hurt like hell, he really appreciated that.

He was also certain that this facility wasn't associated with the Phoenix. Riley and Bozer, but especially Jack, would have been visiting much more frequently if they could. He might buy that he was in the United States, and that his team – and Matty by extension – knew where he was, but they had no direct control or authority here.

Which led to the ready assumption that there was a reason for that, too, and that reason was that the Phoenix either didn't want direct oversight of his care, or they were being prevented from having direct oversight of his care. He was missing bits and pieces, but he remembered more than enough to know that he was probably in deep trouble.

Treason level trouble. And by extension, so too could part of his team. Which could be why Jack hadn't been back since his one and only visit.

Maybe his _last_ visit.

Which brought him back to his last words, and needing to take more care with them.

Once he developed a complete vocabulary, sooner or later someone was going to ask him what he remembered of the op. And honestly, the big gaps were more towards the end than the beginning. At least he thought they were. Time wasn't just jumbled presently, and more and more he was becoming aware that he was having difficulty putting things in chronological order.

Like kitten days.

Riley and a river cruise and a miniature city.

Jack and a plane and a conversation about breaking the law.

Stupid pain medication.

Mac opened his eyes when the nurse thwacked him gently on the shoulder. "Breathe, or I'm gonna get that BiPap."

Mac obediently sucked down a deep breath – ish – and this time the twinge in his chest was much more manageable. Wanda, too, seemed pleased, because she stopped kneading him quite so hard, her eyes somewhere on the wall above his head.

"Alright. It doesn't look like you did any damage, but you keep an eye on that pain for me, okay? I'll let Dora here take over the massage."

The kitten hadn't seemed to be paying any attention – at least he thought she hadn't been, but when he picked up his head a little, he saw that she was watching him very intently, her little tail waving in seeming slow motion. More interestingly, her front paws were kneading the air in front of her, also slowly. As if she had been watching what Wanda was doing, and was mimicking her.

The nurse gave the kitten an affectionate swipe with her hand as she walked by, and Metrodora closed her blue eyes in bliss. They opened – still rather sedately, considering her previous behavior – and regarded him seriously.

He looked at her, then slowly blinked. She slowly blinked back.

"Good luck with that," Wanda murmured. "You page me if she gets to be too much or takes another flying leap, okay?"

With the rails up, fishing her up off the floor was going to be harder, but he was relatively sure the blankets were long enough, and he had the upper body strength, even if right now he was still very sore. The nurse wasn't even gone before Dora got up, stretched, and then pounced on the fingers he wriggled at her.

He was still missing some sensation in his hands, especially his fingertips, but this time he could feel her individual hairs as he wrestled her onto her back. She bit him, but a little more gently than she had the first few times they'd played, and they whiled away twenty minutes quite pleasantly before she crawled up onto his stomach and started inspecting his chest.

Where Wanda had been working on him.

Mac let her do what she wanted, within reason, and for the most part she left his central line alone. She nosed his bandages, a little cross-eyed, before she suddenly reared back, bared her teeth – and sneezed so hard she fell flat on her fluffy little butt.

He couldn't help a smile. _I totally agree._ He was sure he didn't smell good at all.

Despite her first experience, she came back for seconds – a little more carefully this time – and after a follow-up and a much less explosive sneeze, she discovered the snap on his gown, and settled in for some serious chewing. She allowed herself to be petted, purring hard enough to drool and intent on the plastic, and he got a chance to study her up close. Her face and particularly her ears were definitely darker than the last time he'd seen her, and she loved having them rubbed. They felt warm and silky soft to the pads of his fingers.

 _Riley's right. You are a little stinker, aren't you._

She wasn't shy at all about letting him touch her paws, and he ever so gently teased her knuckles, making a single claw flex out, marveling at the bone structure of her tiny little feet. She was a noticeable weight, now, but not uncomfortable, and he found that he liked the warmth, since his gown was half unsnapped and his blanket was down at his waist. She continued chewing determinedly on the snaps as he finally released her paw, but she didn't take it away from him, even when she wiggled up a little higher on his chest, getting her molars involved in the action.

 _Boze would love it if I could take you home._

There were plenty of nooks and crannies in that house to explore, things to knock over, toxic materials on half the counters –

 _We'd definitely need to keep you out of the garage. And the studio._

Otherwise Boze's prosthetics would have hair in them, whether they were supposed to or not. And then there was the problem of the back deck, and the firepit, and how to keep her on the deck but not out in the woods. Or out of the pieces of his motorcycle if he ever finished working on it –

That's right. He had a motorcycle in the living room. He'd gotten it from . . . someone he'd done a favor for, a mechanic . . . but not in California . . . where had that shop been?

He realized with a jolt that he was waking up, that he felt a stabbing pain in his chest.

He was waking up.

He was _waking up!_

Mac would have moaned if he had the breath for it. But he didn't, not anymore. There was a knife in his chest, he was suffocating. Bleeding to death.

Dying.

He was going to be awake, he was going to be conscious when it happened –

No, no no no -

Mac squeezed his eyes shut and gasped in a short breath, willing himself to fall back to sleep, to just pass out, to let go, but the suffocating feeling of panic enveloped him. He couldn't get enough air. He was going to drown, he was going to wake up and he was going to feel it, feel everything, feel that again –

Not again. I don't want it. I don't want it!

The pain bloomed deeper into his lung as he became more aware. More panicked.

Please let me die. I just want it to be over, please just go back to sleep -

I can't –

He gasped in another breath, and somehow it felt like he was actually breathing. Like he could actually take the breath. MacGyver's eyes flew open, and the blackness disappeared. There was a ceiling, a list of words on a screen. Sunlight.

He sucked in another, deeper breath, and the pain was still there, but it was only a shadow. The agony he thought he'd felt was just - gone. The feeling of suffocation was fading quickly, and he gulped down another breath of cool air, tightening his grip on the sheets beneath him.

Sheets. A bed.

Hospital.

He was in a hospital. He could breathe. He could breathe just fine.

Mac lay there on his back a moment, eyes wide, and forced himself to relax. It was way easier without the vent. He wasn't fighting the air anymore. He could have as much as he needed.

As he angled his head back against the pillows, he felt something shift and tickle his jaw. Something alive. Mac flinched a little, then dropped his chin to find that something was pale and furry, and it was curled up in the junction of his shoulder and his neck. Tiny little paws started kneading the muscles along his jawbone, and his sluggishly moving brain finally classified the rumble he was hearing as purring.

Metrodora. The kitten.

He'd fallen asleep. Apparently they'd _both_ fallen asleep.

Mac let his eyes drift shut a moment, and he finally, finally was able to fully relax. The kitten responded by kneading his skin more painfully, her claws a little deep for comfort, and he rolled his head a little to his left to get his jaw out of reach. She was fine with that, still drowsily purring, and he heard her transfer her attentions to the pillow.

It could have been a minute or an hour – he was fairly certain he drowsed at least a little – when the click of the door drew his attention, and he rolled his head back to his right and waited to see who it was. The footsteps were soft, so he was pretty sure it was Wanda, but a white coat rather than colorful scrubs appeared from behind the curtain, and Dr. Parsons gave her tablet one more glance before her eyes cut to him.

"Good afternoon," she greeted him, then her gaze dropped to the gloves at the foot of the bed. Her expression didn't change at all. "Are you feeling any pain or discomfort?"

He gave her one blink, their standard song and dance. Yes, there was discomfort, but it sure as hell wasn't worth falling back asleep.

She made a note – and the why of that, he hadn't figured out yet, maybe just tracking consistency of response? – and came around to his left side, checking all the screens he couldn't see. "You still have that panic on wake response. I was hoping it was caused by the ventilator, but that's the third time."

He'd been hoping the same thing. Mac briefly closed his eyes, rolling them around a few times to try to work out the dryness before he opened them again to find the doctor watching him.

"Would you like some drops?"

She seemed to expect his double blink, and he held still as she applied them, two to each eye. He blinked them around, and then focused on the screen above him, which had cleared to a deep royal blue.

"I'd like to show you something. I realize your responses right now are pretty limited, but I'm not sure Dora's nap is finished, and the information is pretty straightforward. I don't expect you'll have many questions."

That sounded ominous.

Mac blinked the last of the excess liquid from his eyes, focusing on the screen, and he was presented with a very simple line graph. The X axis was time, given the format of the numbers, and the Y axis was –

"This is today's blood work," she informed him drily. "We track inflammation markers in your blood as indicators of infection and healing rates, stress, and anxiety. You can see that when you wake up in the morning, your inflammation increases. And continues to increase steadily throughout the day as you interact with your caregivers and your environment. Until this big dip."

Until he fell asleep. He all but rolled his eyes as he moved them from the screen to her, and the doctor gave him a flat look.

"The big dip began within minutes of you taking off those gloves, and playing with Metrodora instead of with technology. So despite experiencing actual pain, increasing your physical activity, and increasing your attention, your inflammation markers tanked. Do you know what that tells me?"

He let his eyes fall back to the screen, and against his shoulder, he felt the kitten lazily stretch, still purring loudly.

"It tells me you're literally worrying yourself sick The more stress hormones in your blood, the more inflammation and the longer the shock will take to abate. You asked earlier today to be transferred home?" He almost jumped when the doctor dropped her tablet on the bed beside him.

"Apparently you don't really want to go, because you're doing this to yourself. All this compartmentalization and emotional suppression? Not helpful. Knock it off already."

-M-

"She wiped his face?"

"Yeah. And not because he couldn't see, it was straight up a comfort gesture. She even stroked his hair before she left."

Wanda glanced over her shoulder to make sure the conference room door was still closed as they watched Dr. Mone continue to lecture her patient. Five was just staring at her, apparently as surprised as they were, and while some of his responses with his gloves had become almost automatic for him, Wanda couldn't see his hands so much as twitching.

Alec noticed it too, leaning forward in his seat. "He's just sitting there and taking it."

"Well he can't do a whole lot else," she pointed out quietly, so they could still hear. "But yeah, during his breakthrough a few days ago . . . I've never seen her do that with _any_ patient. Not in the four years we've worked for her."

They tuned back into the screen as Simone started laying out mindfulness exercises she wanted Angus to start practicing. "Well, TJ said we wouldn't recognize the old her –"

"TJ says a lot of things." At least half of which were questionably truthful. "Mone has straight up told me to be the comforter, and she plays authority. Never strayed from that role." And the roles were important. Their patients needed to know what to expect so that they could get comfortable, they could relax. And Wanda knew that for the men, usually Alec played the same role. The role of a friend. The confidant, the one with the sense of humor.

Parsons was always the one in charge, so the patients learned to expect that too. If she told them something, she meant it. If she told them they'd walk again, they'd walk again. If she told them that this was going to be something they'd have to work on the rest of their lives, then it was.

Some of the things she said were received better than others. Neurology patients didn't always get good news and happy endings. Brain and nerve damage was always serious, and rarely fully resolved. Not the kind of damage that got sent their way.

Sent _her_ way.

"She just let him get on with his bad self, for as long as he wanted."

"And she's still letting him use their software?"

"Yep." Wanda popped the 'p' on the end, and both stared at the screen as the doctor literally put her tablet in her patient's hands.

". . . and she's letting him see his results."

There was at least a precedent for that; the doctor had occasionally shared medical records with her more competent patients. Not _all_ of their results, and not _all_ of their data, but whatever data she needed to share to engender the response she wanted. That she was doing so with Angus wasn't too much of a surprise; he'd already demonstrated he could do math way outside Wanda's multiple degrees.

"He's my little mathlete."

Alec glanced back at her. "Oh, so she's not the only one smitten."

"Please. He's young enough to be my child."

Her coworker gave her a shit-eating grin. "I wasn't going to say it –"

She whacked him on the shoulder. "Shut up, cracker."

"Oh, where's HR when you need them." They both focused on the screen again as Patient Five scrolled through some data on the tablet. "He's doing really well."

"Yeah, he really is," she agreed quietly. "I just hope he doesn't go and break our hearts."

"The seizures?"

That wasn't the only thing about Angus MacGyver that worried her. He'd had exactly one since the really bad one. Mercifully, it had been in his sleep, he wasn't aware it had happened at all. And no matter what information Mone was sharing with him right now, it wouldn't contain the faintest inkling of it.

Nor the results that pointed to potential dyslexia, his sleep disorder, and the worrying trend of depression that was still present despite his recent triumphs. Emotional suppression aside, something was seriously troubling that young man, and even with real words at his disposal, he wasn't saying a peep about it.

"Seizures we can treat. Secrets, now, I ain't so sure about."

Alec stood when the patient on the screen offered the doctor her tablet back. Her consult was almost finished. "You do know where you work, right? Secrets are kind of par for the course."

Wanda gave him a play scowl as they turned off the system and casually let themselves out of the conference room, lest it look like they were spying on their boss. Alec had left his cart around the corner, and based on the collection of art supplies, she knew exactly where he was headed next.

"Unfortunately, I don't think it's the kind of thing he can solve with a little fingerpaintin'."

Alec grabbed a fat paintbrush off the cart and shook it in her face. "Oh ye of little faith. Besides, it's less finger painting as it is body painting . . ."

"I'm well aware." She swatted the paintbrush away. "Because I have the pleasure of talking Patient Four into the shower every time you lead art therapy."

"At least Mannuel _will_ take a shower if you ask nicely," a cool voice noted, and Dr. Parsons slipped into the nurse's station behind them. She was in the pink sneakers again, which made her very easy to see, but harder to hear coming. Which was why they'd left the conference room in plenty of time to be found not outside of it. "Go ahead and leave Metrodora in with Five for a while longer. She's the only thing that seems to improve his mood."

Alec bobbed his eyebrows silently at Wanda, and she gave him a subtle nod back as he trundled off to therapy and she entered the horse-shoe shaped station with their boss.

"I keep tellin' ya, there's not much a kitten can't fix."

-M-

Fun fact: I had to go back in my own story to actually find Mac's last spoken words, just to see what they were. They were to Colonel Aydin – "If we do this my way, everyone lives. No one has to die today!" I think as far as last words go, those are pretty good ones, that Mac might actually be satisfied with. His last written words – semi sinkn – were a little less profound, but definitely still represented him well.

And he had the same last words for both Jack and Riley – 'go'. His last words (that we see) to Bozer were math, but I think it's safe to say his actual last words to Bozer were probably "Good night."

When I was writing this chapter, I started thinking about my own current last words to friends, etc, and I can't remember most of them. I also can't always remember the last thing someone said to me before they died, but I absolutely remember the last time I saw them. So at least for me, I think the last thing I do with people will be more etched in their memory than the last thing I say, which is probably a good thing all around. =)

Anyhoo, in summary – we finally got to see inside Mac's head, and now we know what he's thinking, how he feels about his situation, and what makes him panic every time he wakes up. We also learned that Parsons is changing up her usual tactics when it comes to Mac, and her nurses are starting to notice.

I apologize for any typos – my beta reader is still incommunicado on her mission. Let's all hope she doesn't have a Jakarta or a Cairo situation on her hands!


	34. Chapter 34

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Note:** There's a military term in this chapter: **secret squirrel**. It means someone is in intelligence and they've either been given a top secret mission, or asked to communicate something in secrecy.

-M-

"I understand you're actually my patient this morning."

Jack didn't turn away from the screen he was watching, but he did lean up off the corner of the doctor's desk. "Yep."

There was the sound of cloth moving behind him, then a long stillness. "I see you've forgotten your sling."

"Nope." He knew exactly where it was. In his bedroom, in a pile on the floor next to the trash can it hadn't quite made it into.

Timothy Talbot blew out a breath. "Tell me, how's that working out for you?"

Jack shrugged noncommittally, only realizing after the fact that it was also a demonstration of exactly how much better his collarbone was. "A little sore, but feel better with it off than on." He finally did turn away from the TV to face the male half of the Drs. Talbot, and he gave the man a crooked grin. "I'm good. Boy scout's honor."

"You were never a Boy Scout," the doctor said drolly, gently pushing Jack back onto the corner of the desk and indicating that he wanted access to Jack's right arm. Dalton agreeably offered it, settling more squarely onto the desk, and the doctor placed a warm hand over his right collarbone and gently started manipulating the arm.

"And if you had been you would have been kicked out," the doctor continued. "I honestly have no idea how you managed to stay in the Army as long as you did. Any of this hurt?"

There was a twinge of pain now and then, but it was mostly just sore, and Jack shook his head. "Nah. Feelin' pretty good. You gonna give me a kitchen pass?"

On the screen over the doctor's shoulder, his partner was getting somewhat similar treatment. He wasn't allowed to use his own arm either, the dude who showed up every now and then was working on him. Mac didn't look terribly happy about it, but then again Jack figured he wasn't healed up as much. He'd taken a lot more damage. The rest of the shit aside, getting a through and through was no fun. Blade or bullet didn't make a whole lot of difference. And putting a lung in the way made it that much worse.

Tim caught him watching the screen, and smiled as he angled Jack's arm up a little higher than was strictly comfortable. "A kitchen pass maybe, field clearance no. Looks like you _and_ Mac are going to have a bit more vacation."

He had a feeling his was a little more pleasant than Mac's. "How's he doing?"

The doctor cocked an eyebrow at him, continuing his stretches. "Melissa can give you a better run-down than I can, but from what I can see, he's doing as well as can be expected. He's not my patient at the moment," he added pointedly. "And he's not the only one who took a beating. Jack, I need you to appreciate the fact that you're not a twenty-something, and you haven't been taking care of yourself half as well as they're taking care of Mac. You're not going to bounce back from things as quickly as you used to."

He punctuated the sentence by angling Jack's arm further past the point of pain, and Dalton glared at him. "Yeah, I'm old. I already got Riley tellin' me, I don't need you too."

Tim relented, and gently put Jack's right arm in his lap, still keeping a hand on the point where the break had been, feeling the movement of bone and tendon. "I heard that op went well."

"It did," Jack admitted, a little grudgingly. "But that don't mean the next one'll go off without a hitch."

"Jack. You were shot _nine_ _times_. Armor or not, those bullets created more impact force than the average car crash. Mending bones aside, there was a lot of damage your body had to heal. It's going to take longer than you think to get up to a hundred percent. Rushing things is going to do you about as much good as it'll do Mac." Tim tipped his head in the direction of the monitor. "I don't have the benefit of seeing Mac's blood work and test results, but I can tell from the look on his face that he's just as antsy to get going as you are. And the best thing for both of you right now is to take it easy. Field work is not easy."

"It is if it's surveillance," Jack grumbled. "I'll use the donut cushion and everything."

"You're doing surveillance right now," the doctor countered. "How are you enjoying it?"

Jack gave him a half-hearted glare. "Well enough to ditch the sling, thanks for asking."

Tim gave up and laughed, releasing his patient. "Well, fair enough. If you can keep up with your PT without it, I'll let it go. We'll re-evaluate you in two weeks."

"Two weeks?!" Jack shot up off the desk and waved his left arm in the air. "Doc, this has already gone on longer than –"

"Keep protesting and it'll be three." Tim was already making the note in Jack's chart. "Besides, there's no way you qualified in the range with that arm. Considering I haven't cleared you for right-handed firearm use," he added pointedly.

That Tim knew Jack had already been down in the range practicing was no surprise. He'd been practically joined at the hip with the docs Talbot since they got back from Amsterdam. And once again, his eyes were drawn to the reason for that, also just finishing with his own PT. Mac's took a lot more out of him, particularly now that they had him working his core and legs, to an extent. He looked wiped.

"When's that shock gonna wear off?"

"Hmm?" Tim apparently followed his gaze. "Hard to say. Usually three to four weeks but sometimes longer, and his seems to be resolving a little more slowly than usual. Keep in mind, he went septic right after the surgery, and was in a coma for weeks. Give him time." The doctor didn't sound overly concerned, but Jack was pretty sure he could be bleeding out on the floor and Tim would have been using the exact same tone. Neither of the docs Talbot were excitable people.

They watched Mac take a deep breath, adjusting the bed back up to his preferred position, and visibly ready himself. Then he gestured directly at the camera – probably to his offensively orange gloves.

Of _course_ he did. "Doc, I don't think he heard ya."

"He wouldn't listen to me any more than you do," Tim grumbled, and turned his focus back to Jack's chart.

And though the guy who had done Mac's PT was no longer in frame, his voice was still loud and clear. "You really should be resting, dude." Mac's eyes travelled up, above the cameras now, expression stony, and Jack almost laughed. The guy who'd done his PT actually did. "Listen, I know you didn't sleep much last night. Doc's changing up your meds, trying to get you off the hard stuff. What I just gave you, that's only going to be after physical therapy from now on. Sleep's gonna be a little harder to come by for a couple days. You should get it while you can."

Mac seemed to consider that, then gave an eloquent – if stiff - shrug. With the tube out, he could squirm around as much as he wanted, and the fact that he wasn't told Jack loud and clear exactly how tired he really was. Tim, interest piqued, came back over to stand beside Jack as Mac gave a little sigh – or maybe a deep breath - then gestured again for his gloves.

Probably to plead his case as to why he should have them.

PT Guy got another gold star from Jack when he responded simply with "Sure, okay, dude, right after you take a nap," and rattled around another few seconds before apparently proceeding to leave the room. Mac watched him go, then slumped back against his pillows. Jack cocked his head and watched his partner mull it over.

"He didn't sleep last night?"

"Don't know, I did," Tim replied quietly. "But we can roll back the footage and check."

Fair enough. So had Jack. "That's a good sign, right? That they're cutting back his meds?"

"Usually." Tim twisted around and Jack heard his chart hit the desk. "Among other things they've been giving him anti-seizure medication, which has a sedative effect. My guess is they want to see if it was the meds, or the symptom itself has dissipated"

Meaning that the seizures had gone away by themselves. Jack hoped fervently that was the case. "See anything that'd tell you different?"

Beside him, the doctor sighed. "Again, not my wheelhouse. Without access to his scans, Melissa can't tell much. It could be epilepsy, in which case he'll have to learn to live with them. I hope it was just a temporary part of the healing process . . ." He trailed off, a little uneasy, and Jack actually glanced at him. Tim was frowning.

"But?"

The doctor pushed off from the edge of the desk and suddenly busied himself with hunting for the remote. "But without data it's just speculation. Even if he was here, this would be a wait and see kind of situation."

And Jack was getting sick and tired of those "We been waitin' a long time, doc."

"I know, Jack. Try to be patient."

Another thing Jack was pretty sure Mac wasn't willing to do, based on his expression. "But his results are good, right? With those video games he's been playin'?"

Tim continued surveying his desk. "Jack, all due respect, you're already privy to way more information than I think Mac would be comfortable with. He's doing well. Better than any of us had any right to hope for. That's all I can tell you for now." He finally located the remote – which was more of a mini wireless keyboard than a television remote - and he was about to rewind the footage when Mac pushed himself up a little straighter, eyes back on the camera.

Or on the gloves.

Tim's frown deepened. ". . . he's going to get them himself, isn't he."

It definitely looked like he was giving it serious consideration. And the bedrails were down to give PT Guy easier access, so there was nothing Mac could use to haul himself to the end of the bed. If he tried for it and couldn't make it, there was a chance he'd take a header right over the side.

 _Dammit, Mac . . ._

This was why they should _be_ there. They could keep him company, even if he couldn't talk. Tell jokes, distract him, make the time pass a little easier –

Jack blinked, then glanced down at the mini keyboard in Timothy's hands. Without hesitation he reached over and grabbed it.

"Jack-"

If he remembered Riley correctly, all he had to do was type, and the software would convert it to Morse code, and blink on the front panel. Mac was already staring almost directly at it, so maybe he'd notice it –

Jack used his thumbs to tap out the words, just like texting.

 **MAC TAKE A BRK**

At first he didn't think it worked, that Mac hadn't seen it blinking. Mac's expression didn't really change, and he tried shifting his hips a little further down the mattress. But then he froze, and stared hard directly at the camera.

Jack typed it again, and Mac didn't move a muscle. He barely even breathed.

 _There ya go._

 **HI BUD**

Mac's eyebrows bunched, just a little, and Jack smiled. "Oh yeah. He's on it."

Mac hesitated, clearly trying to work something out, and then he reached over and fished his hacky sack out of the sheets. He kept the move casual, but then he gave the camera another hard stare.

Like he was asking.

 **ITS ME**

Mac's fingers tightened a little around the hacky sack, and then he relaxed back into the pillow pile and idly fidgeted with the toy. It took Jack a few seconds to figure out what Mac was doing, and he felt almost stupid when he finally caught on.

Timothy saw it too, but he didn't know what it was. "He's not tapping out Morse . . ."

"It's SS." At the doctor's confused look, Jack elaborated, even as he typed. "Sandbox Shorthand. Long story."

 **SECRET SQRL**

Mac was asking him if he was being watched, and the answer was yes. He didn't think the doctors and nurses at St. Mary-Dismas were watching Mac as closely as they were, since PT Guy didn't come back in there when it became clear his patient was about to go for the gloves, but better to be safe than sorry.

He watched his partner digest that, tossing the hacky sack slowly between his hands, the way he usually did when he was just fooling around. Jack was beginning to think Mac didn't have anything else to say, but then he gave him another signal, this one as subtle as the first.

 _Are you in trouble?_

 **ALL GOOD**

Mac's eyes narrowed skeptically, and he repeated the gesture.

"What's he saying?"

"He's asking if any of us got chucked under the bus." Or at least that was how Jack was interpreting it. That signal was the one they used when Mac needed to know if Jack's position had been compromised, or was about to be discovered. Which was a very Mac thing to worry about. A radio click was the standard response, and Jack thought about the shortest way to say what he needed to say.

One blinky for yes, two blinkies for no, like with the radio? But that was backwards from the way the docs had him doing it, and he didn't want Mac to be worrying about them at all.

 **SRSLY TAKE NAP**

What he was typing was showing up on one of their screens, so the doctor could follow along, and Tim grunted in agreement. Mac did the opposite, causally rolling his eyes but putting a little more focus on the hacky sack, tossing it gently from hand to hand.

Working on his coordination. Avoiding going to sleep.

"Doc, can't they do somethin' about those nightmares? Will maybe getting him off the good stuff help with that?"

Tim's voice sounded strangely feminine when he replied. "They're not nightmares, per se. And I thought we were only supposed to use that in emergencies?"

Both men turned – a little guiltily – to see Melissa Talbot in the doorway, looking amused, and Director Webber standing beside her, looking not.

"It _was_ an emergency," Jack defended himself. "He was about to do somethin' bone-headed."

"And here I thought you had the market cornered," Matty replied drily. "You _do_ understand how many laws you just broke, and the consequences of getting caught?"

Jack grumbled under his breath, but he did hand the mini-keyboard grudgingly back to the doctor, who cleared his throat and started preparing to rewind the footage. Leaving him totally out to dry. But Matty seemed to feel that she'd made her point, because she let him off with an eyeroll startlingly similar to the one Mac had given him, and proceeded into the room, also studying the screen. "What did you mean when you said they're not nightmares per se?"

The female half of the Drs. Talbot headed straight for her own desk and picked up her tablet, bringing the screen on the wall behind her to life. A research paper popped up, littered with tiny font and graphs.

"If the display behind MacGyver is to be believed, his brain isn't entering normal sleeping patterns. His REM cycles – the cycles of sleep where we experience dreams most vividly – are very short, much shorter than normal. For a while I thought that might explain his reaction. Current belief in the scientific community is that memories are filed away in the brain during REM."

"So you're saying that because he's not experiencing REM, he's not making memories properly. Is that why he doesn't seem to remember where he is when he first wakes up?" Matty sounded unconvinced.

The doctor hesitated. "Not exactly. His reaction is way too consistent for simple confusion. He's remembering something, the _same_ something, every time he wakes. I was hopeful the presence of the ventilator was the triggering mechanism for that memory, but that doesn't seem to be the case."

And the last memory he'd made before he went under was –

Was gettin' pinned to the wall on that boat.

The doctor gestured towards one of the graphs on the display. "There's been a fair amount of research into something called 'looping trauma.' We've all experienced it in one form or another – like when you're worried that you're going to sleep through an alarm and miss your plane, no matter what you were dreaming you'll wake up early and repeatedly, watching the clock. The need to not miss the alarm is something that loops in the part of the brain called the hippocampus, and that thought, that need stays present and resident there until you cease to be worried about missing that alarm."

Missing your ride was not something Jack would consider 'traumatic,' and Melissa seemed to read it on his face. "In the case of more serious trauma, your fight-or-flight mode switches on, and the amygdala gets involved. When that happens, the memory or the need becomes even more embedded– it stays front and center in your thoughts until you're no longer in danger." She then transferred her gaze to Mac, who had not stopped futzing with the hacky sack. "We know that he suffered some damage to his hippocampus, but we don't know how much. And we know that he's still experiencing pain from his injuries. I don't think he's having nightmares when he dreams. I think that as he begins to regain consciousness, that looping memory asserts itself, and he believes that he's still in that same traumatic situation."

"So you think he remembers what happened on the _Panorama_ ," Matty finished, and the doctor nodded.

"It's not an uncommon form of PTSD. Unfortunately, until his brain is able to file that experience as a memory, it's not going to go away. It's happening on a subconscious level, he has no control over this type of looping memory. It's not a thought habit he can break with coaching."

They were all quiet a moment, considering her words. The only ones that mattered to Jack were 'looping' and 'nothing he could do.'

So every time Mac woke up, he thought he was dying, and there was literally nothing anyone could do about it. Not until his brain got its shit together.

And they still didn't know if it could.

"But, doc –" Jack stabbed a finger at the image of Mac, still tossing the hacky sack back and forth. "We know he remembers stuff from after Amsterdam. He remembered me and Boze and Riley visitin' him. He knows his doc's name, he remembers where he is and what's goin' on. If he can remember all that, then don't it mean his brain's doin' whatever filing it's supposed to?"

"Yes, Jack, and that's all positive," she assured him. "I'm not talking about debilitating injury. He's clearly able to make new memories, and recall things that have happened since the coma. I'm simply saying that he's not experiencing REM as he should, which means that it's going to take longer than it normally would for his hippocampus to release this memory."

"Do these symptoms add up to some other kind of damage or injury?" Matty's voice was absolutely steady, and Jack briefly hated her for it.

The doctor shook her head. "I don't know. Without his scans, we don't have enough data." She had the same uneasy tone her husband had. "For all we know, the seizures, the lack of REM, and the looping memory are side effects from the akt/FKHR activation. It didn't show up in our modeling, but . . ." She trailed off.

The experimental procedure. That was what was bugging the Drs. Talbot. They were afraid they'd done this to him.

"Then you shouldn't be blaming yourselves," Matty replied, in exactly the same tone, and this time it didn't rub Jack the wrong way. Because she was right. That might have been the very thing that got Mac's brain going again when they pulled the plug on him. Maybe waking up might suck for a while, but at least he _was_ waking up. As far as Jack was concerned, they'd helped save Mac's life, and that was nothing to be sorry for.

"I'll continue trying to get you access to his test results," Matty continued. "And I've put in a request for another site visit. However, his care team is still adamant that he's not yet recovered enough to be debriefed."

Melissa still looked troubled, but she nodded. "Yes, I saw the initial prognosis, and I agree. But once he gets enough dexterity to type, or to write, it'll be harder to justify the additional delay."

"I thought Oversight was laying off using Mac as a scapegoat," Jack growled, and Matty gave him a warning look. Much as he appreciated her request to get them back in to see Mac, he wasn't gonna hold his breath. If it came down to them or an 'evaluation' team -

"It's not coming from Oversight – at least, not ours." This time her matter-of-fact tone was less comforting. "I think it's pretty clear that Mac remembers at least part of what happened, and that investigation is still ongoing. He _will_ be debriefed, Jack. The only question is when, and how much he actually remembers."

And how much of what he remembers matches up with what the rest of them said.

"And speaking of Oversight, I have an appointment. Thank you for the update, doctors." She waved a hand at Jack. "When can I get this one out of my hair?"

"Another two weeks, I'm afraid -" Timothy started.

"How about right now," Jack suggested, at the same time.

Matty looked between them, her expression unreadable. "Jack, you're spending too much time down here. Get back to work. And under no circumstances are you to use that device to signal Mac again unless it's an _emergency_. He's a big boy, if he wants to stay up past his bedtime that's his prerogative."

-M-

The first break in the routine came when Dr. Parsons hooked the wheeled stool with her foot, dragged it over to the left side of the bed, and sat on it.

The second came when she reached over to the control pad on his bedrail and started lowering it. Ostensibly so that she could see him more easily.

MacGyver played it off, looking politely interested and totally ignoring the little white box clamped to the end of his bed. Despite his best efforts he'd fallen asleep and apparently slept all afternoon; the windows and the clock told him it was early evening and he could look forward to another sleepless night. The doctor rarely saw him this late, so whatever she wanted to talk about, it was new.

Like maybe how his team was communicating with him via Morse code, instead of calling him on his room phone, which he hadn't realized he even had until yesterday.

The doctor merely watched him as the mattress dropped to a level she was happy with, and then she withdrew her hand. Her tablet was gone; in its place was a simple pad of paper and a pen.

"This is for you," she told him, apparently following his gaze, and held up the pad. "If you feel like you're able to write."

She set it down on the mattress beside his left hand, and Mac eyed it a moment before he tried to pick it up. He could do it – awkwardly – but he didn't think he could hold it firmly enough to write on it, so he set it back down with a shake of his head.

"You might reconsider that. Let's just leave it there for now."

Mac sharpened his attention, and pushed himself up a little on his pillows.

Dr. Parsons gave him a measuring look. "Now that you have a voice, I'd like to have a conversation with you about how you're feeling."

His right hand twitched automatically for the right word. "Good." Ever since Alec had warned him that his meds were being changed, he'd been expecting this. And while he had a little more pain, he also had a little more clarity of thought, and he wasn't willing to exchange it back.

She made a dismissive gesture. "I'm talking about how you feel emotionally. What's going on in your head right now."

The depression. He repeated the gesture. "Good."

"Really." She leaned forward on her elbows, resting her chin on her folded hands so that they were almost perfectly at eye level. "I've got a pile of data knee high that says you're not. You've recovered enough physically that we need to start evaluating your mental health."

Mac stared at her a second, then glanced at his screen, and assembled a quick question. "More tests."

"Not that kind." She hadn't moved a muscle, just watching him with her golden green eyes. "This isn't multiple choice. Why don't we start with you telling me what scares you."

Mac blinked at her, a little taken aback. His first thought was 'acrophobia' but he hadn't exactly added that to his word library, so he pinched his thumb and left middle finger together to access the editor.

She cut him off with a gesture. "You don't need that."

But it was only one word, and he didn't need to go for the clinical term, so he ignored her, and typed it out anyway.

"Heights."

"Right now?" She made a show of leaning up and inspecting his bed. "You're less than two feet off the ground, MacGyver. Also, you're not afraid of heights. You're not afraid of falling, either, or even landing. You're afraid of getting hurt." The doctor gestured up at the screen. "And I know that's one of the words you already have loaded into the software. So let's try this again. What's scaring you right now?"

He felt that was a little disingenuous. Technically she was right, actual height wasn't a problem. It was simply a measurement. But falling by itself was still pretty scary, because he had basically zero control over where he would end up and in what condition he would end up.

Okay, fine, you could call that fear of lack of control, but it was hard to prove a negative, so a lack of something wasn't really a fear. It was the result of the lack. Which wasn't pain as much as –

As being broken. Yeah, his legs would hurt, but worse was that they wouldn't work, and he wouldn't be able to do anything about his situation. And 'broken' was definitely not one of the words in his current wordlist. He hadn't broken a bone, near as he could tell. Well, except maybe a rib, but that was less broken than it was simply cut. And after all this time, it was probably more than half mended by now.

Besides, he wasn't 'scared' of broken bones, or of pain. He knew full well that nothing was going to happen to him here. He wasn't going to be injured. He wasn't going to die. He wasn't happy about staying in this facility, but at least physically, he was just about as safe as he could be.

"MacGyver, I realize that I have asked you a difficult question, but the answer should be obvious to you. What's scaring you? I'll give you a hint, it's what you've been thinking about every day since you regained consciousness."

Mac just stared at her. Then he signed the only three words that made sense. "I am not. "

He wasn't scared, not in the way she was insinuating. He was worried, it was true, but there was no way to boil that down to a word or two. He was worried about his team. Worried about the Phoenix. Worried about the consequences of what he'd done, and how it reflected on them. Worried that he'd left them in a lurch, worried that they'd go too far to try to help him. Worried that he'd hurt them.

He was worried about his brain. Worried that this problem of putting things in order wasn't temporary, wasn't caused by the drugs. Worried that he might not ever fully recover physically. Worried that he might not be able to do the job anymore.

Worried that the nightmare wasn't going away. Worried that every time he had it, he always reacted the same.

How was he supposed to represent that in one simple word?

"You don't need to describe some complex scenario here. What we fear, it's very simple. If you can't break it down into something you can tell me with the vocabulary you already have, then you don't actually know."

He looked away from her, back at his list of words, and scrolled through them without really seeing them. If he was being honest . . . 'broken' was about as close as he could get. But it wasn't scaring him. It simply was. He either was or he wasn't, and there was absolutely nothing either of them could do about it. As he healed, he'd find out. If he had physical issues, they might be able to correct that with surgery or other treatments. If they were related to his brain, he'd have to learn to compensate, if it was possible, or to live with a disability. Millions of people around the globe did it every day. He was more than capable.

"Current psychology says there are only five basic fears: extinction, mutilation, loss of autonomy, separation, and loss of Ego."

He parsed through those in his head a moment, then looked pointedly at his screen. Exactly zero percent of those options were part of his current word library. Simone shook her head.

"The only people who talk about fear using those words are psychologists. Here's something else I want you to think about. Fear by definition is not logical. It's simple, but it's not neat and tidy. Your lizard brain is not concerned with 'extinction.' It is concerned with 'dying'. Rabbits are not munching grass in your garden pondering the greater meaning of life. They're just trying not to get eaten." She paused, watching him for a reaction, but he had nothing to add.

"Humans love labels because labels make it easy to simplify and conceptualize things, and we're more comfortable with concepts when we feel like we fully grasp them. We like neat lines and clean edges. If I identify something, I can categorize it with other things I'm familiar with. It goes into a box that I already know how to handle. I feel like I have some control."

He wondered idly where control landed in her pentagon of fears. Arguably all of them.

"Right now you basically have no control. You've lost full autonomy, you've been mutilated, you are separated from your tribe, you may have experienced loss of self, and you probably whole-heartedly believed you were going to die. If I stick to the recommended psychological assessment here, you've got the pentafecta." She leaned back and dropped her hands to her knees with a quiet clap. "Which makes it, diagnostically speaking, completely worthless to the both of us."

The fact that she'd basically said aloud exactly what he was thinking didn't go unnoticed, and Mac just stared at her. What was she looking for? Agreement? So he signed it.

"Yes." Not that that helped either of them, either.

And she seemed to agree with his unspoken thought, because she snorted. "So I'm going to need you to find your own word, that represents what's scaring you right now. Because whatever phrase you're using, whatever label, it's not working. You're not handling it. You may have put it in a box, but you clearly have no idea what to do with it."

Which actually wasn't true. Granted, he'd labeled his worries, but he knew what to do with all of them. Five or six somethings. Probably more, if he was willing to accept lower than ninety percent probability of success –

"And I'm going to help you out with that," she informed him. "Until you can give me that word, until you can represent that fear to me in a way I can understand, I'm going to do what I can to make that easier for you. You're strong enough now to sit up in a wheelchair for short periods. So we're going to do that. You're going to start leaving this room for your therapy. You're going to interact with other patients and visitors. I'll never surprise you, and I can promise you that you will be perfectly safe, but I may ask you to do things that scare you. If we find there are things you can't do because of fear, then we'll be that much closer to finding your word."

On the surface, it made perfect sense. She was right; in a way every one of her five 'fears' applied to his situation, and exposing him to them one at a time should indicate which ones were more influential than the others. Exposure therapy, plain and simple. It wouldn't work that way, of course, but it was a logical approach.

So then, why bring in a pad of paper?

He'd initially thought it was to write down the word or words, if she didn't want him to type them into the software, but she hadn't let him do that either. If it was a prop, what was he supposed to have done with it? Was it there to show him that he couldn't write, to get a reaction to that? Was she already testing him?

Or was she testing something else? Because asking him what he was scared of was a roundabout way to get him to stop doing something she'd already identified as a problem – compartmentalizing. She'd been accusing him of hiding things from her and suppressing his feelings since he'd first opened his eyes. And he didn't think it had to do with the op. She wasn't trying to interrogate or debrief him. She was trying to get him to do _something_ , but he just wasn't quite sure what it was.

Not that it mattered. Getting out of the room, exposed to new people and experiences, was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to try tasting things. Doing things for himself. New sounds, new smells. If he was legitimately in a clinical depression – and there was no reason to believe he wasn't – then what she proposed was increasing his activity, another textbook technique to treat any chemical imbalances in his brain. Maybe she'd thought he'd be averse to that, and this 'word' she wanted was simply a way to get him to agree to it without realizing.

A little too late, he noticed that she was studying him quite closely, and he settled for nodding at her. Yes, he agreed with her proposal. At least on the surface.

And she seemed to interpret it as such. "Good," she approved, and collected her pad of paper and pen. "By the way, your agency has been getting antsy to see you again, and I'll admit I'd like a word with your technical support."

Mac did his level best not to change his expression, and Parsons gave him an inscrutable look before she stood. "Agent Davis isn't in trouble, but I _would_ like access to those results. We'll start tomorrow. You're probably going to have some difficulty going to sleep tonight as you get adjusted to the new medication protocols. I'd give you something for it, but let's face it, you'd reject it anyway, and it would only prolong the time it's going to take to get accustomed to your new schedule." She tucked the pad of paper into her pocket, and then reached up near his head, using the buttons to start raising it.

"That said," she continued drily, as the bed rose back to its original height, "your active resistance to sleeping is just as disruptive. If you don't or can't stop, I _will_ take away your distractions." Her eyes lingered on the hacky sack, and Mac carefully didn't react. When he realized that was in fact a reaction in itself, and potentially more telling, he deliberately reached over and picked it up.

Dr. Parsons grinned at him. "Fun, isn't it? Try to get some sleep." Without clarifying that comment further, she looped around his bed and disappeared behind the privacy curtain. He heard her heels clacking on the tile, the lock disengage, the lever being pressed. The high heels carried her out the door, and maybe five or six steps beyond it before it gently closed, and his room was quiet again.

-M-

 **TWO DAYS LATER**

Wanda waved her badge at the door, pushing it open with an elbow and a hip, and for the very first time since Patient Five had taken up residence in the room, she was greeted with laughter.

Angus was still holding court, with his friends gathered close around him so that they could all share the bucket of magic markers, and it was pretty clear that he was not the butt of the joke, given the almost sulky look on Jack Dalton's face. She couldn't tell which coloring book he'd ended up with, since he'd slapped it closed the second she'd cleared the curtain, and she gave him a sympathetic look as her partner in crime – or rather, MacGyver's – casually stood and stretched.

Wanda passed off the contraband to Wilt Bozer without issue, pressing the small Styrofoam cup into the hand he'd eased behind his back, and then she made a show of inspecting the room. "I have to say, given all the ruckus I'm a little surprised no one's sportin' a marker mustache. You hooligans think you can keep it down to a dull roar?"

Wilt indicated the still-pouting man across the bed from him, keeping his other hand out of sight. "Help us out, Nurse Wanda. What color do _you_ think tiger-bears are?"

And she could honestly say, that was the first time anyone had ever asked her that question. And she'd been asked a _lot_ of strange questions.

"Well, now, let me see," she started, half to buy herself some time, and half to have an excuse to look around the room a little more closely.

Nothing seemed too out of place. Angus was still in his bed, right where he was supposed to be, wearing only one of his gloves, on his left hand, and obediently trying to color with his right. He'd chosen one of the geometric coloring books, the one that looked to her like curving stained glass windows, and was currently using a wide-bodied marker. She wasn't as interested in his color choices and neatness as she was his progress, and the number of colors he'd chosen. He'd gotten about a quarter of the page done, with four different colors, and while it was clear he was actually trying to concentrate and do a good job, there was a faint smile on his face, almost a smirk.

On his left was the sulking wonder, who flipped his bright orange marker into the plastic bucket on the bed. He'd taken off his coat at some point and tossed it over the back of the chair, and despite the exaggerated moping he looked like he was having a fine time.

Riley Davis and Wilt were on MacGyver's right side, both smiling like the cat who'd gotten the canary. She knew why Wilt was pleased with himself, and whether Riley was in on it was debatable. She'd chosen one of the space-themed books and was adding her own armor to the female pilot on her page, with her feet propped up on the edge of the bed.

It appeared, at least on the surface, that everyone was following the rules and MacGyver was actually working on his therapy like he should be.

"Tiger-bears?" she asked, just to make sure she was clear on the request.

"Yeah. Tiger-bears," the lone female agent confirmed with a grin. " _If_ they existed, what color do you think they'd be?"

"Riles, I have told you a hundred times, they _do_ exist, and I have actually fought one, _bare-handed_ –"

Her patient raised his left hand and made a gesture she'd never seen him do before, waving his fingertips across his own throat in a cut-off motion. His voice program responded with "Yes Jack."

Without any inflection, the computerized voice sounded bored, and both Riley and Wilt burst out laughing again. Angus managed the widest smile she'd seen from him yet. Dalton adopted a hurt look.

"Oh, well of course." Wanda cleared her throat. "It's just that it's classified, and I keep forgetting you're all cleared."

She got four sets of eyes, and made a show of crossing to the hand sanitizer station and getting a squirt. "The Russians were the first to breed tiger-bears, and as you'd expect, they used Siberian tigers, so the Northern Tiger-Bear looks a little bit like a snow-covered log. White on the top, brown on the bottom, which is good because the darker fur hides blood more easily." She rubbed her hands briskly, then turned back around casually. Even Dalton had turned to stare at her.

"The Chinese, never wanting to be outdone, used the traditional orange Bengals, so you ended up with a more even-colored rusty brown, with dark stripes down the back. Those critters are damn near invisible in the underbrush. I'm surprised to hear you managed to fight one off, and . . . bare-handed, you say?"

The only actual soldier in the room picked up what she'd laid down like they'd done it all their lives. "I did," he admitted proudly. "It was tough, maybe one of the toughest battles of my life, I'm here to tell ya-" And then he waved his still-closed coloring book. "And would you believe these chuckleheads didn't believe me?"

Wanda rolled her eyes heavenward. "Lawd help us when the millennials take over."

"Amen sister."

"Nuh-uh." Wilt shook his head, still on his feet. "Tiger-bears are not a thing." Then he gestured at Dalton again. "And don't go sidin' with him. He's bad enough by himself."

Jack's head reared back in mock offense, and Wanda caught the unabashedly fond look her patient threw at the older man.

This was good. She'd actually left the room to run labs, and while these three weren't quite as good an influence on her patient's stress hormones as Metrodora, this time he was responding a little better to them. This time he didn't have anything to prove. No tests to take, no time limit. Just a bucket of markers and a couple hours of conversation.

This therapy had nothing to do with art, or working on his dexterity, and everything to do with his mental health. Reassuring him that they were fine, and more importantly, that they were comfortable in his presence. They were doing exactly what they'd been asked, and Wanda didn't think for a second that it was a chore for any of them.

"Besides, I got somethin' way better than a tiger-bear," Wilt continued, taking a seat on the edge of his roommate's bed. "'Cause it's real," he added sarcastically, cutting off Dalton from yet another attempt to plead his case.

"Taa-daa!" Wilt whipped the small white cup, complete with a full-sized plastic spoon, from behind his back, and Angus blinked at him quizzically. So did everyone else in the room.

So clearly they were not in the know.

"Come on, man, you haven't eaten real food in like, over a month. I asked the nurse if it was okay," he added quickly, when Jack's expression suddenly went serious. "It's just a taste."

"A taste of what?" Riley leaned up to try to get a look in the cup, and Wilt lifted it out of her reach.

"What else? But you gotta promise not to choke on it, Mac. It's not McConnell's, buuuuut . . . I think it'll hit the spot."

He offered the cup with a flourish, and her patient carefully and deliberately capped his marker, then set it in the crease of his coloring book before he accepted the cup. He glanced into it, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

Jack couldn't help himself, and he leaned over to peer into the cup as well. "Is that –"

"Yep." If Wilt Bozer had been wearing suspenders, Wanda would have bet good money that he'd have snapped them, he was preening so much. "Rocky Road."

At the bottom of the cup was about a tablespoon of rocky road ice cream. It wasn't pristine, she'd had to mash it up a little to make sure there were no large chunks of nuts. He was still on oxygen, and he still had a feeding tube running through his nose and down the back of his throat, but he'd been dutifully practicing swallowing for days now, and the request had been so heartfelt that Wanda couldn't bring herself to tell Mr. Power of Attorney no.

Angus MacGyver was his best friend, after all, and this was apparently his very favorite flavor of ice cream. Mone had approved the request without fuss. "We've got to reintroduce him to real food sometime," had been her only comment.

It wasn't enough to upset his stomach, it was hardly more than a taste, but it was still more than enough to choke him if he aspirated it, and Wanda gave her patient a stern look as his eyes cut to her, like he couldn't quite believe she was letting it happen.

"You take it _slow,_ " she warned him. "If I have to suction that outta your lungs, you're goin' back on the BiPap tonight."

He gave her a quick nod, then turned back to Wilt Bozer, and his left hand made a very familiar gesture.

"Thank you."

"No thanks required," Wilt assured him. "Just . . . hope it tastes as good as you remember."

Angus suddenly looked a little self-conscious; he shifted the cup into his gloved hand so he could grab the spoon with his right, and it was easy to deduce what he was worried about.

He hadn't tried to put anything in his mouth since he'd woken. And now he had to do it with an audience in the room.

However, given the accuracy with which he'd tried to take out his endotracheal tube – and his central line - Wanda was pretty sure it wasn't going to be a problem. She gave him an encouraging nod, and he picked up the spoon, which had a little coating of melted ice cream on it, and very carefully brought it to his lips. He wasn't graceful by any stretch but he got it successfully into his mouth, and then he closed his lips around the spoon, and pulled out clean white plastic.

For a split second, he didn't do anything else, and she was a little afraid he really couldn't taste it, but then a slow smile spread across his face, and he closed his eyes in obvious enjoyment. Whether it was an act or not, it had the desired effect; the other three people in the room visibly relaxed, congratulating Wilt for a good idea.

"Gotta say though, doesn't matter how hungry you are, and how long you've been without real food, hospital jello never tastes good. Never." Dalton said it with the air of someone with plenty of experience on the subject, and with a commanding look at his younger companions, all but ordering them to join the conversation.

Trying to keep the attention off Angus, so he could eat in peace.

Wanda listened to the three debate the finer points of hospital cuisine, eyes on her patient, and she saw him carefully swallow before he opened his eyes and dipped the spoon back in the cup. He ate it all, even scraping the sides for the last little bit, and when he handed the empty cup and spoon off he locked eyes with Wilt, and once again he signed 'thank you'.

Wilt took it in stride, jumping up to throw the cup away, and Wanda tilted her head towards the trashcan. "In with the biohazards, sweetheart."

"These two? Biohazardous trash? It's like you know them," Ms. Davis quipped, giving Angus an affectionate look. "And I know work's off limits, but I heard Accounting basically had an ice cream social of their own when they got back this quarter's mobile phone repair bill. It was only three digits west of the decimal point, instead of four. They're attributing the savings directly to you, Mac."

Angus made a simpering face, or as best he could, and for some reason all of them – and Jack Dalton in particular - thought that was _hilarious_. But her patient didn't choke, didn't cough, didn't show any signs that he'd aspirated any of it, and after about ten minutes and some housekeeping, Wanda was convinced that it had all gone down okay, and it was going to stay down.

Still, she handed off a kidney shaped emesis basin to Wilt. "You're the reason there was ice cream in this room, so if it makes a reappearance, that's on you," she told him. "If anything happens, you page me, okay sweet cheeks?"

"Yes ma'am." There wasn't a trace of sarcasm in his voice, and Wanda gave him an approving look and turned to her patient, who had resumed coloring.

"I'll be back in fifteen minutes to wrap up this party, handsome." She waited for his nod of acknowledgement, which she got, and she took in a quick visual of his current BP and pulse before she bustled out of the room, down the hall, and into the conference room.

Dr. Mone was still there, eyes on the screen, and Wanda wasn't at all surprised to see that MacGyver's blood pressure had already climbed a couple points. "Could be the sugar," she offered, but she didn't believe it either, and Simone snorted.

"No more than what's in his usual nutrition slurry. If any of them are going to drop a bomb on him, it'll be now, and he knows it."

The big screen was split into three, with the software focused on the visitors, and Wanda joined her boss at the walnut table, fishing a loose pen from her pocket as she sat.

"Are they?"

The doctor frowned thoughtfully. "Doesn't look like it." It was hard to tell which one of them she was watching. "Something's up, but they're keeping it to themselves."

Which was exactly what they'd been asked to do. None of them were making wrapping up motions, clearly for MacGyver's benefit, but every once in a while they exchanged looks when they thought he wasn't watching.

"Bring them in here when you roust them, please."

Wanda hummed in agreement. "And put him down for a nap?"

Simone nodded absently, eyes still glued to the screen. ". . . get him on the aquatic therapy schedule, too, if you wouldn't mind."

The nurse gave a low whistle. Angus and water probably weren't going to mix well together. "Think it'll trigger that panic response of his?" If he still felt like he was suffocating when on solid land, she hated to think how he was going to feel about being in a situation where there was a chance, however remote, that he could actually drown.

Simone actually turned and gave her a look. "Oh, if I could, I'd dump his ass in the deep end." Her eyes cut back to her patient's stats, which were climbing steadily. "For now get him on the sling rotation. We can't submerge that chest wound yet, or his central line."

Wanda fished her iPhone out of her bra and unlocked it. "Speaking of, when's the line coming out?"

"I have to consult with Pulmonary and Endo, but it should be sometime next week." Simone toggled the view so she was studying MacGyver's visitors again. "The ice cream went down easy enough, but I don't want to tie up his hands or his arms. We might leave the port and just cap it for now."

Wanda added the notes to his record. "They grow up so fast."

The doctor gave an unladylike snort. "He'd definitely like to believe that."

-M-

Hey look! Two chapters in two weeks. It must be a miracle!

Or a lot of rain. One or the other.

This chapter is also un-beta'ed, and if you've been noticing, the chapters that get beta'ed are WAY better. But my mysterious and awesome beta reader has returned alive from her super secret mission, and will be back at it to save you all from my typos next chapter.

In summary - Jack's out of the sling, but still on the bench, at least for a little while. The Talbots gave us all an update on Mac, and he's still safe – for now. Mac and Dr. Parsons had a little talk about what might be bothering him, and came up with a plan to tackle it. And the team got to have a coloring party with Mac – complete with a tiny little bit of ice cream. Because ice cream!


	35. Chapter 35

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

 **TWO DAYS LATER**

The doctor approached the rounded lip of the pool and regarded her patient. He was utterly unmoved; in fact, she wasn't completely sure that he was awake. His eyes were closed and his body sagged in the water sling. Only the movement of his chest – heavily wrapped to protect his wound and central port from accidental exposure to the water – gave away that he was even alive.

Standing waist-deep in the water beside him, Alec grinned up at her. "We could just leave him in here. He seems to like it."

With remarkable consistency, Patient Five believed he was unable to breathe almost every single time he regained consciousness, and yet here he was half-submerged in water, in a compromised body, and for all intents and purposes he was taking a nap.

Angus cracked open his eyes and offered up a faint smile.

There wasn't a tense muscle in his body. He wasn't faking relaxation, or forcing it. He looked completely at home in the water, comfortably worn out. He'd even released any grip on the sling itself, and his hands and arms drifted freely at his sides.

Scratch 'fear of drowning' off the list. If he did have it, he had it very well controlled.

"We'll see how he feels when those sore muscles make themselves known." She jerked her chin at the sling mechanism. "Even if he hasn't finished his last reps, let's get him out." Lack of paralyzing fear aside, he was physically spent.

Water therapy was an excellent way to allow patients with partial paralysis to begin moving parts of their body they might otherwise be too weak to manage. In his case, the shock was receding, and he was capable of moving his legs, but more than a month of nothing but one hundred percent assisted stretching had left his lower limbs – and particularly his core – too weak to manipulate in regular gravity. Add water, and a lot of the weight of the limbs was gone. It gave her a much clearer picture of exactly how much mobility he could manage.

And he didn't clench up as Alec used the panel to slowly hoist him out of the water. He let his arms and legs dangle, only bothering to turn his head when he'd been lifted completely from the small, round therapy pool and Alec angled him towards his wheelchair, parked and waiting.

"Don't help," Alec told him, hopping out of the pool. "I don't want you to tear anything."

Angus gave the man a nod and allowed himself to be lowered into the chair. Simone gave him an appraising look as he obeyed her nurse – mostly – and remained passive and still as the other man came right up into his personal space, placing his feet on the footrests, using the sling to pull him a little more upright in the chair. There wasn't a visible ounce of fear or trepidation despite the fact he was being all but manhandled. He winced a little when Alec tugged the now-released sling out from underneath him, and he leaned onto his right elbow on autopilot, but otherwise he gave no sign that the other man's proximity bothered him at all.

Then again, he knew Alec, and he knew that he was relatively safe. It didn't necessarily mean he'd always respond that way to someone breaching his personal space, but it was a positive sign.

"Alright, let's get you back to your room and dried off before you catch a chill, and Dr. Parsons here has my hide."

The water therapy room – which included two smaller therapy pools, like the one her patient had been lounging in, as well as an Olympic sized pool for more advanced patients and group therapy – was kept quite warm, but the hallways were a little less so. Most patients would be bundled into a terrycloth robe, but Patient Five definitely wasn't up to getting himself into clothes. Instead, Alec draped a warmed bath sheet over MacGyver, tucking it into the seat so that it wouldn't get caught up in the wheels, and gave her a nod. "He got through four of five reps. I think we might be going too easy on him."

In the chair, her patient gave a quiet huff. When he saw he had their attention, he shook his head.

Clearly he thought the day's activity was sufficiently challenging. She'd be surprised if he stayed awake for the trip back to his room.

Alec was wearing his typical neoprene shorty and pool shoes, and made quick work of toweling himself off and tossing the used towel in the bin. It wouldn't do for either of them to drip water on the floor, and the wheelchair Angus was currently slouched in was designed to retain any moisture that might otherwise escape. In no time they were off, and Dr. Parsons accompanied them until the split.

Remarkably, her patient had his eyes open, and he turned his head towards her as she peeled off towards her office. She paused, looking at him expectantly, and he swallowed, then mouthed in a slurred, breathy whisper, "Pass?"

Smartass.

"You skipped a set of reps, MacGyver, so you tell me."

He gave her a tired grin, well aware she knew exactly what he was really asking – and that he knew the activity had been testing more than his mobility – before Alec pushed them off again. He bent low, near his patient's ear, probably warning him not to bait her, but she saw no flinch, no alarm at all from Angus.

Probably too tired for either.

Still, she added it to the encounter notes as she slipped into her office, shucking her pumps at the door and curling up on her sofa. _Improved control of lips and tongue._ She'd already instructed Wanda to start him on thickened nutrition shakes, his activity was now starting to outpace his caloric intake. He'd be making much faster progress from now on, which should also cheer him up and help him even out that depression.

Right until he woke up from the inevitable nap and started the cycle all over again.

"What am I going to do with you?" she asked aloud, staring at the mobile hanging above her coffee table. The air flow from the central duct shifted it continuously, and she watched the countless little mirrors for inspiration.

Almost as if he'd been waiting outside the door for her to speak, a head poked in.

"Mone, you have a second?"

"For you? No."

Dr. Seth Collins translated that and came in, closing the door behind him before selecting one of the two chairs facing her desk, and he made a show of turning it around and painstakingly adjusting it before he took a seat.

"So you're discharging One?"

"Yes." Both interpretations of that sentence were correct. "She's gotten back as much as she's going to get." Patient One – Sarah McIntyre – took extensive shrapnel damage to her neck and spine, and complications from emergency surgery performed in medical tents near the front lines had become insurmountable. She was never going to walk again.

Or eat dinner at the table, or speak to her children without the aid of a computer, or breathe without mechanical assistance. She still had her good days, though, and if the VA could drum up a halfway decent physical therapist and a competent neurologist, they could make sure there were more of them in her future. She had very little brain damage, her helmet had seen to that, and she'd shown a lot of interest in chronicling her unit's story. Her wicked sense of humor was also intact. She was plenty stable enough to go home.

"That is to say, you'll have a free bed by the end of the week?"

"Atta boy. I always knew you could do arithmetic."

He beamed at the sarcastic praise. "Oo, then let me really wow you, and ask if it's going to be _two_ beds."

Simone raised an eyebrow. "It's not." Then she ran down her mental patient list again. "Four's mobile but still working on impulse control, and I don't want to boot him when we've finally made some progress. And Three has taken a peek or two at full consciousness, but I'm not convinced he liked what he saw." Two was her newest patient and still touch and go, deep in a medical coma, and not even remotely near discharge status. "Why? You have a pair of twins for me?"

Dr. Collins leaned back contemplatively in the chair, getting comfortable. Which wasn't a good sign. "What about Five? You estimated another three weeks, but I saw him in aquatic therapy earlier and he looks pretty good."

"Didn't know you swung that way." And since that was the patient she was making notes on, she had the information readily available. "Physically he's recovering well. There's no indication that he'll suffer any permanent paralysis or physical limitation, other than a shitload of scar tissue. The sleep disorder is being irritatingly persistent, though, and we've just rolled him off anti-seizure meds." Seth was well aware that was a two week observation protocol by itself; he'd written the damn protocol. "He's also got a couple cognitive quirks I'm trying to pin down."

The other doctor pursed his lips. "Anything that would render him incompetent for interview?"

Mone didn't bother to suppress a snort. "Just that he can't speak, write, or type." She used her bare toes to indicate the coffee table, and Dr. Collins took in the small stack of crudely drawn three dimensional shapes. They would have been impressive, if her patient was a four-year-old. There wasn't a single straight line or even remotely round circle in the lot. "He's got the typical shakes, nothing alarming. Should be fully resolved in – wait for it –" and she made her best thinking face, "-three weeks. It's almost like I actually use predictive analytics to come up with my patient discharge estimates."

Seth let it go without comment. "He seems to be capable of communicating with you."

"With a sixth grade vocabulary. It's extremely clunky to have him actually build words using that prototype. It's not meant for long conversations." She waved a hand. "Look, are you getting pressured again, or can you legitimately not prioritize between two patients?"

"The waiting list hasn't gone anywhere, Simone. There are always more patients available than beds in your ward." He said it matter-of-factly, which basically answered her question. This wasn't yet another conversation begging her to take on more patients. "Your nurses say you've taken a special interest in Angus MacGyver, and I agree. And he's benefited from it. He's recovering well, if I couldn't see the lesions on his scans I'd have trouble swallowing his original diagnosis. But if he was any other patient, you'd only keep him here another week, two max if you felt like following the seizure protocol to the letter."

"He's not ready." MacGyver was not the first patient she'd made a decision to keep beyond critical care, and he wouldn't be the last. Physically, yes. If the seizures were fully resolved, there was no reason he couldn't be treated closer to home. His pool work and labs demonstrated that the shock was basically just annoying, now, rather than paralyzing. Unless he suffered a setback, he'd be walking unassisted in less than a month.

But if she couldn't get that looping trauma unstuck, she had no doubt he'd eventually crumble. No one could tolerate that kind of reaction, day after day after day, without some kind of relief. Anxiety every time you fell asleep, because you knew what was waiting for you the second you woke up.

"We can't just throw CBT-I at him. His problem's not insomnia, or nightmares, and it's occurring at a subconscious level. Until we get his REM avoidance straightened out, or at least come up with a sustainable drug cocktail to correct for it, he's going to avoid sleep until he develops psychosis."

Cognitive behavioral therapy – CBT – wasn't going to do MacGyver a damn bit of good, and they both knew it. This was Seth's wheelhouse; he was a globally recognized expert in conscious and subconscious trauma and its relation to PTSD.

And despite that, he didn't look sold. "That's not going to be a quick fix. What's your plan?"

"Now that he's demonstrated some resilience, I'm going to induce REM and see what happens." If his brain was actually capable of sustaining a REM cycle, the odds of it resulting in vivid parasomnias were fairly high, but on the flip side, it might finally trigger his hippocampus into releasing the embedded fear. That type of treatment wasn't something they could prescribe long-term, and if he did develop psychosis as a result, or his brainstem was too damaged to handle REM, he'd end up right back in their facility anyway.

Because he'd eventually become so sleep deprived that he'd have a psychotic break. And all the parachutes in the world wouldn't catch him if that became his new normal.

Seth gave her a long look. "Okay," he finally said, and inclined his head slightly in acquiescence. "But just so we're clear, you may not get those three weeks, particularly if it's for a sleep study. It's apparent from his test results that he may still retain intelligence about an active investigation, and that investigation is of the highest priority."

Meaning national security – _actual_ national security, not the excuse politicians gave when there was a chance someone might know something about a maybe actual but possibly just hypothetical terror cell. He was telling her flat-up that the board – and whatever fucking senator was pulling the strings – was going to overrule her medical advice in favor of getting the intelligence while the getting was good. Whether he was ready or not.

And whether it was in his best interest or not.

"Well, I mean, what do I know, I'm just his doctor."

Seth gave her a slightly pained look. "This is not your first deadline, Simone. If you'd like to get involved in the politics, I'd be happy to include you . . ."

She glared at him for about ten seconds – which he took like a pro – before she shook her head in disgust. "Well, then I guess Five's in for a rough couple nights."

So much for avoiding that setback.

-M-

Riley gratefully accepted the water bottle, cracked it open, and drained it in under thirty seconds. Her partner raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn't comment, retaking her seat on the threadbare couch and sipping her own bottle much more slowly. When Riley was done, she capped her now empty bottle and tucked it into the mesh pocket on the outside of her hiking pack.

The agent beside her simply inclined her head. "Bet you're a ton of fun at a bar. You know when you guzzle water like that, it passes through your system too fast to be fully absorbed."

Riley tucked her pack back under the three-legged end table, almost knocking it over in the process, and gave the woman a sideways look. "You're saying I'm gonna have to pee before you."

The blonde agent nodded again, eyes glued to the laptop screen as a red Altima cruised past the 'For Sale – Foreclosure' sign in their front yard. "That's what I'm saying."

 _Not gonna happen._ "Challenge accepted."

Agent Wright smirked, then took another dainty sip of her own water. "You always that dedicated?" Riley gave her a quizzical look, and Alicia gestured at Riley's pack. "Packing out your trash. Or are you just that serious about recycling?"

Riley couldn't help a smirk of her own. "It's a surveillance op, so yeah. I don't want our trash to give away our position. As for recycling?" She gave her pack a long look, cataloguing everything visible. "You never know when an empty bottle will come in handy."

There was a pop in her ear. "Preach it, girl."

Followed closely by another voice, also male, and significantly less amused. "Can I get a little noise discipline here?"

Riley felt her eyes rolling, and was mollified to see that Alicia responded exactly the same. However, both the women reached up and tapped their comms, once, which put them both on mute. Riley heard Bozer in the beginning of continuing some kind of play on churches and amens but his voice cut off before he got to the point, so she assumed he'd done the same.

Sending Wilt Bozer and Tom Monnegar into the gym as mercs looking for work had been Matty's idea, and Riley knew why she'd done it, but she was slightly more than half certain that only one of them was going to walk out again, and it was gonna have nothing to do with the arms dealer who owned it. "Monnegar always like that?"

The blonde woman stretched, in a way that told Riley she'd been formally trained in ballet at one time or another, and then rolled her head on her shoulders. "Yeah, but don't let it rub you the wrong way. He's also a lot of fun in a bar." The woman sighed deeply, then opened hazel eyes and focused on the screen again. "What about yours?"

"Boze?" Riley opened a can of Pringles and popped one in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. "Kinda the same, actually." Then she reconsidered, offering the can to Alicia. "Okay, I mean, right now he's being an ass, but it's coming from a place of love."

The other agent helped herself to a small stack of chips, and they watched the cameras – one in Bozer's glasses, the other on the arm-mounted holster that held Tom's smartphone – but so far their male counterparts hadn't been approached by anyone. It might have had something to do with the fact that they were on literal opposite ends of the gym. For a pair of mercs who supposedly worked well together, they were doing a bang-up job of demonstrating the opposite.

"So he was really all that," Alicia murmured, then crunched a chip. Riley gave her another sideways look, and the other agent gestured at Riley's pack again. "Muhgover," she added, then swallowed. "Sorry, I meant –"

"Mac. Yeah, I got it," Riley assured her flatly, and focused back on the laptop before she realized there'd been a question in there with the potato chip pulp. "And yeah. He is."

The other agent didn't miss the use of present tense, just like she didn't miss the change in Riley's demeanor. "Look, you two shut down every time he's even mentioned. I'm not attacking the guy. I'm just asking."

"And I answered you," Riley replied, in the same flat voice, and toggled back to the gym's closed circuit camera system, which the boys had helpfully made available to her via a very small, very useful little wireless device that had been designed by the very person she didn't really want to talk about right now.

Which Bozer had rubbed in Agent Monnegar's face about twenty minutes ago.

An image of her mother's disapproving frown floated across her mind, and Riley groaned and vigorously rubbed her eyes.

". . . if you wanna get some shut-eye-"

"Nope." She finished the eye rubbing, glad she wasn't glammed up for this particular op, and shot the other agent a small, hopeful sincere enough looking smile. "You'd just accuse me of using it as an excuse to go break the seal."

Agent Wright accepted the olive branch. For about fifteen seconds. "Listen, Davis. I get the loyalty, I do. MacGyver's a freakin' legend. And Dalton made the arrangement crystal clear, okay? It's a temporary assignment. Eyes wide open." She held up her hands placatingly, still holding a couple chips. "But we're three ops in, here, and I'm getting a little tired of the fucking minefield. The only bad guys here are the arms dealers, okay? He's not freakin' Voldemort. I should be able to say his name without you shooting me down."

For some reason, the image of Mac in Voldemort's robes was hilarious, and Riley had to clamp down on a sarcastic laugh. "Yeah, he's Gryffindor all the way. Even with the Ravenclaw tendency."

The other agent threw a chip at her. "Can we please actually talk about this for a minute?"

And it occurred to Riley, quite suddenly, that maybe she'd been locked in this house with Alicia for the same reason Matty had thrown Bozer and Tom into the lion's den together.

Because Agent Wright wasn't wrong. It _was_ a problem. She couldn't let her guard down with these people, even though at least Alicia was making an effort. Tom was a little harder to figure out, and the fact that her mind immediately latched onto the obvious 'Tom Riddle' joke told her that she was definitely trying to avoid something.

The problem was, she wasn't quite sure what. And she was starting to think it had nothing to do with Tom and Alicia.

So Riley leaned up straight, stretching her back, and took a deep, calming breath. And imagined that somewhere out there, Akatsutsumi Saito looked up from whatever he was doing, and smiled.

"Okay, let's talk about it," she agreed. "Mac's the team leader. And he's not here right now. And we miss him. But we've got a job to do, and the best way to get that job done is to avoid distractions. Clear enough? Good talk."

"But he _is_ a distraction," the other woman pressed, and she indicated Riley's empty water bottle again. "You two think about him all the time. Every inside joke is about something MacGyver said or did. Did it occur to you that maybe the rest of us would like to be let in on it?"

Riley paused. "No, actually," she admitted slowly. "And to be honest, that'd be pretty hard, because we don't understand half of what he did anyway-"

"You really have redirecting down to an art form," the other agent complimented her. "Seriously. It does not offend me that you don't want me here. I got it. I got it day one. I'm no replacement for MacGyver. Tom's no replacement for MacGyver. And hey, that works out, because _we're not trying to be_. So put down your hackles for ten seconds and help me salvage this op."

And even though Riley was one hundred percent positive that their coms were muted, and there was no possible way that anyone could have heard their conversation, her earpiece popped. "Monnegar, get on weights, and Bozer, spot him. Come on, at least pretend you're professionals."

That it was Jack's voice, and not Matty's, was even more surprising.

There was another pop. "Oh I'm sorry, do you wanna be the one in this stinky, skeazy-ass gym gettin' toenail fungus? Or are you just grumpy 'cause you forgot your inflatable donut?"

Alicia glanced at her, and Riley opened her mouth, then gave up with a sigh, and held up a finger. Then she tapped her comm. "Head's up, the owner just left his office. Time for the gun show."

At least with Jack still trapped in Ops, she could be reasonably assured that neither of them was going to pull an actual gun.

Bozer apparently muted his comms again, but she could actually _see_ him snarking to himself as Tom wandered over to the bench press and gave his 'partner' a wave, at which point Boze plastered on a fake smile and waved back, then set his freeweights – which looked about ten pounds more apiece than he usually lifted – and headed over.

Alicia was watching the feed too, and made a face. "This was a bad idea."

Riley agreed wholeheartedly. "Well, they gotta measure those johnsons sometime."

There was a pause, then her ear popped. "Riles, your comms are still hot."

She glanced at the system tray, then silently swore. Too late to take it back now. "I'm just saying what we're all thinking."

"You know, I actually wasn't thinking about his johnson," Agent Monnegar grunted, adding weights to the bar, and beside Riley, Alicia facepalmed.

"You're damn right you're not," Bozer growled hotly, even as he approached the back of the bench to take up the spotter position.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let's all agree to table the dick measuring until _after_ you get hired by the international arms dealer, m'kay?" The voice was unmistakably Director Webber's, and Riley just slowly shook her head. Then she tapped her comm - and made damn sure it was on mute - before she slouched back into the decrepit couch.

"Well, congratulations, you're right in the middle of this inside joke," she finally offered, and beside her, the blonde agent gave her a painful smile.

"Yaaaay."

-M-

 **SEVERAL DAYS LATER**

Art therapy was his least favorite group activity, and Mac couldn't help the relieved look he was certain crossed his face when Kristy, his transport nurse, finally extricated herself from conversation with one of the therapists and headed in his direction.

"Hey, pretty good!" she chirped, coming around behind him to evaluate his work. He was still sticking with straight lines and circles, the two major geometric shapes that made up the Roman alphabet, and even he could appreciate the progress he'd made.

"So you've been having nightmares about two dimensional objects, huh?" she continued, her voice teasing. "You have some very strange dreams there, handsome."

It actually surprised him a little that her use of the nickname bugged him more than her criticism of his work. Nurse Wanda called him handsome, she had since he could remember, and for some reason when she said it it felt like a name. When anyone else said it, particularly in front of others, it seemed more like a label. And it wasn't a label he wanted.

Certainly not in this room.

The patient sharing his table was also wheelchair bound, clearly from the burn unit. He wore a light, long-sleeved hospital gown, and the right sleeve hung empty. What was visible of his face, his bare scalp, and the remainder of his left hand was covered in shining, wrinkled scar tissue, still healing. Mac could tell at first glance that he'd been hit with air hotter than four hundred degrees, a flash burn. His eyes were still there but milky, likely permanently blinded, and he used the three fingers he had left to try to mold play-dough. Mac hadn't been able to figure out what he was attempting to make, and he wasn't sure the guy knew himself.

He also wasn't sure the man could hear, but since the major structures of the ear were inside the skull, they should have been more protected than what was left of the exterior structures.

If he _could_ hear, the last thing he needed to be around was a perky young female voice calling someone else 'handsome.' Drawing attention to physical appearance. And Mac found he was a little irritated with her for not thinking of that herself.

Maybe the burn patient _was_ deaf. Mac didn't even know his name.

But it wasn't just his silent art buddy. There were half a dozen people in the room, each one bearing devastating, life changing injuries, each one trying to cope the best they could. One table over, a young woman whose face and forearms were covered in long, thin cuts was painting wavy lines on a page, then going back to color in the irregular shapes they produced, all in black. She spoke to the painting incessantly, warning it that the something was coming, trying to soothe it as she covered it in a thick coating of acrylic.

Her partner, also painting, was a slightly older woman, maybe in her mid-thirties. She seemed quite lively and interested in what was going on, smiling, soliciting feedback from the supervising nurses, and was halfway through a near-perfect replica of a Claude Monet painting that she seemed to be reproducing from memory. But every so often, she would go completely still, her horrified eyes locked onto some detail of her painting for minutes at a time.

There was another table, behind him, where Mac knew that a young man, not much older than himself, was rocking back and forth because choosing between two different crayons was overwhelming to him. His partner was trying to color the palms of his own hands rather than the paper in front of him. Behind the burn patient, an older man, maybe pushing fifty or so, scowled as he assembled what appeared to be a scale model of the Eiffel Tower out of pipe cleaners, without a visible wound or behavior quirk to be seen. But he was also the only patient who was alone at a table, and his right ankle was secured via a padded kevlar cuff and strap to the table leg. The nurses only rarely spoke to him, and always very cautiously.

And Mac hated it. Hated that he knew there was nothing he could do to help any of them.

It made him uncomfortable, guilty, to sit there and try to draw his straight lines and circles, knowing that he would be leaving this place in days or weeks, and they wouldn't. Even if the seizures were permanent, he was still himself. Even if he was tried and sentenced to life in prison, he'd be able to walk, to read books, to write letters. He could still learn, he could taste food, smell the paint and the clay and the sharp tang of burn cream.

It reminded him of the hospital in Kabul, walking out under his own power through a lobby full of broken soldiers who couldn't.

It felt like he didn't belong. It felt like he'd done something wrong. Like he was sitting here as a constant reminder of what they had lost and he had not.

And yet he _was_ in here. Here in art therapy with them. Someone thought he should be. Someone thought he should be in this facility, being cared for by the same medical professionals who were trained to put people back together when there was virtually nothing left.

 _Yeah, bud. It was bad. Real bad. It's a miracle I got any hair left at all, grey or otherwise. But the docs pulled you through it._

At the time, he'd been mostly paralyzed, barely able to move and terrified that it was permanent. Now, though, Mac wondered how much of 'bad' was what had happened to his brain. What happened while he was in that coma. Why they thought he would need a place like this.

Exactly what his prognosis had been, and exactly how 'fine' he really was.

Then again, he'd been asked to draw what he was seeing in his nightmares, and had completely ignored that instruction in lieu of practicing lines and circles.

Mac shook himself out of his thoughts and offered Kristy a shrug. Sketching things was Boze's forte, not his. Sure, he could whiteboard with the best of them, but that was engineering. Drafting a design, angles and precise measurements and matrices.

Lines and circles, mostly.

That's not what he was dreaming about. Not that he could even really remember the dreams, just a feeling of frustration, an inability to accomplish some goal. There were bits and pieces, but the way they were waking him up, and what always came after –

There was no boogeyman for him to draw. It wasn't that simple. And it sure as hell wasn't on the same scale as the other demons in this room. The struggles the other patients were going through. At least in physical therapy, he felt like he belonged with the other patients. You could see the injury, and better yet, you could do something about it. Painting a sheet of paper black wasn't going to help him with this.

It would go away on its own. Sooner or later, he'd wake up one morning and just wake up. Maybe when he was finally back in his house, surrounded by familiarity, there would be enough detail for his senses to latch onto that his brain would realize that he was okay. When the soreness in his chest was gone. When it didn't constantly feel like there was a foreign object physically embedded inside his lung, whether it hurt or not.

It was going to take time. Like his voice. There wasn't a magical shortcut through a marker, or a paintbrush, or some stupid word. Just time.

"Well," Kristy murmured, releasing his parking brake as another therapist came over to collect his 'artwork,' "I didn't really like Flatland when I read it, either, so I guess I can't really blame you. Let's get you back to your room, I understand you've got a snack and some meds waiting for you."

Mac made the decision, then and there, that the next time he was in art therapy, he was going to draw a carrot and a stick, and let them make of that what they would. His snack, he was very much looking forward to, and he'd never take chewing his food for granted, ever again.

The meds, on the other hand, those were the stick. Those were for his nap. Parsons didn't mess with his sleep during the night, she was too gung-ho about her schedule and routines. She saved her induced REM cycles for his afternoon siestas. He already wasn't crazy about the amount of time he still spent sleeping; being intentionally sedated so he could experience nightmares he couldn't even really remember was the icing on an already frustrating cake.

Mac watched his art partner for any sign that he was aware that something was happening as Kristy carefully backed him up from under the table, checking to make sure he had his arms and legs inside the ride before she turned him and they headed for the door.

"You didn't squirrel away any pencils, did you?"

He silently shook his head. They were soft lead inside wide-bodied, brittle plastic, intentionally designed so that patients couldn't use them as weapons. He was pretty sure he could have easily broken one in half, even as weak as his grip currently was. The paintbrushes were the opposite, huge fat things that wouldn't be useful for stabbing. He also noticed that he had never been offered a paintbrush, or paint.

Or anything containing metal. No paper clips, binder clips, not even a pen cap. The only time he'd been allowed to use normal art supplies had been in his own room, when he'd been supervised by his team. The guy building the Eiffel Tower, near as Mac could tell, was the only one who'd been given anything useful, in that at least pipe cleaners had wire centers that could be twisted together into a pick.

That also seemed counterintuitive to Mac, considering that guy also seemed the most dangerous. Then again, a pipe cleaner was no match for kevlar, and he'd be caught and stopped long before he could twist enough of them together to make a stiff enough wire for a weapon.

Now, the wheelchair he was sitting in, that was a whole different ball of wax, and Mac mentally cataloged the parts as she pushed him smoothly past the therapists and then switched directions and towed him backwards through the motor-assisted doors. He was visualizing disassembling the caster wheel assembly when she suddenly released his wheelchair with a quiet yelp of surprise.

Mac rolled backward another couple feet before friction stopped him, and the double doors in front of him swept closed with a magnetic click. He heard a sharp intake of breath, and a lower pitched, much more controlled exhale, and in the rectangle of glass in the therapy room doors, he caught a glimpse of movement.

Not quite sure what he expected to find, MacGyver grabbed the left wheel's hand-rim and spun himself in a slow, controlled circle. By the time he'd made it about forty degrees he'd noted that there were only two other people in the hallway, both clinicians, quite a distance away, and when he'd made fifty-five degrees he could crane his head far enough over his shoulder to see Kristy.

A mountain of a man in plain blue scrubs had her pulled back against his chest, with a beefy arm wrapped around her upper shoulders. It might have been the embrace of a boyfriend but for the piece of metal he held to her throat with his other hand. His lips were right next to her ear, whispering too quietly for Mac to make out.

MacGyver reached out on instinct with his right hand to stop the motion of the wheelchair, wincing a little at the pull across his chest, and he watched the man drag the nurse backwards towards the main exit.

The incongruity of the situation seemed almost absurd; a patient somehow getting hold of a weapon, somehow getting into a secure hallway, somehow getting hold of a hostage, with no one else noticing –

There really were only two other people in the hall with him, apparently oblivious, and no other sounds. No shouts. No alarm blaring. No other patients. Just him, the man, and Kristy. Mac reviewed the facts a second time, examining each one carefully, and then he sat there in his chair, quietly, and he watched.

It was another test. Parsons wanted to see how he'd respond to violence. If it scared him.

His nurse certainly looked scared. She hadn't cried out past that yelp, she didn't scream, but her feet scrambled to find purchase as she was dragged towards the badge reader. The 'patient' was wearing scrubs instead of a gown, but his socks were patient issue, with treads on the top and bottom, and his arms were decorated with military tattoos.

As they passed by one of the many hallway doors, a small white LED set in the top of the doorframe started blinking. As it flashed, Mac caught a glint of sweat on the man's clean-shaven face, and he felt his first little pang of doubt, followed by a weak burst of adrenaline.

Behind him, there was a series of cascading clunks, magnetic locks engaging all the way down the hall, and the 'patient' dropped his right arm from where he'd been holding the nurse, ripping her badge from her scrubs in the process. He crushed the badge into her shaking right hand, and waved both at the badge scanner. The guy kept her back against his chest, covering as much of him as he could, and he kept whatever metal instrument he had pressed tightly to her throat.

Very accurately over her carotid.

 _Which any military trained security guard posing as a crazy patient would know_ , Mac told himself, even as he felt his pulse pick up.

The badge reader gave no indication that it had read the card, no green or red LED and no beep, and nothing else happened.

Mac heard the man growl something at Kristy, who quickly shook her head no, and they were still close enough that Mac could actually see her skin part as the man cut her throat. Not deeply enough to hit the artery, but definitely not a trick or special effect. Kristy flinched, but still didn't scream, and real blood welled from the cut.

So not a test.

"Open th'door," he growled harshly, as if he was repeating something he'd already said. Kristy responded by again shaking her head no. The man slammed her hand against the badge reader a second time, hard enough to snap her plastic badge in two. The nurse flinched again, but still she didn't make a sound, and MacGyver realized she was holding her breath. Keeping herself quiet on purpose.

No alarms. No yelling from down the hall. No screaming.

No noise.

Because noise would be alarming to the patients. Noise would add to the confusion.

Mac glanced over his shoulder, and the two people he'd seen in the hallway had covered about half the distance to them, both with their hands empty and held away from their bodies. They weren't calling out, they were moving smoothly and quietly, and he realized with a lurch that they weren't approaching to help Kristy. They were headed directly for him.

To get him out of harm's way. To remove another potential hostage from the situation.

The patient realized it too; he shoved the nurse away from the door, leaving Kristy's shattered badge on the floor and using the back of her shirt to propel her forward. The piece of metal stayed at her throat. "Not 'nother step!" he hollered, spitting on the last word. Kristy locked eyes with Mac, and though she still looked terrified, she very subtly shook her head.

Only after he felt the cold seeping into his fingers did Mac realize he was still gripping the hand-rims of his wheels.

He'd had a week to evaluate the security in the therapy hallway. Multiple dome cameras, anti-tamper badge readers, fire curtains that could be drawn to barricade part of the hallway. The steel doors had reinforced magnetic locks and kick plates, not even that tank of a man could break them. He was cornered and he knew it, and the patient transferred his grip from the back of the nurse's scrubs to her hair, yanking her head back and further exposing her throat to show them the blood.

There was a cold, rigid quality to his eyes, a desperate need that Mac had seen before. He had one goal, and the lock and the nurse were nothing more than obstacles. There was no reason to believe that he wouldn't kill her if he wasn't able to get through that door.

Mac opened his mouth before he remembered that he couldn't speak. Couldn't call out, couldn't reason with the guy. Couldn't do anything.

Except give him exactly what he wanted.

Mac rolled himself forward, just enough to get a little momentum, and when the man's wild eyes fell back down to him, he let go of the wheels, still coasting, and held up his hands. Showing that they were empty.

Slowly, he pointed his left at the badge reader. Then he pointed at himself.

The patient stared at him a moment, seemingly in disbelief, and the nurse gave Mac an imploring look, and another tiny head-shake.

Telling him not to get involved.

This time the man caught on, and he shook her like she was nothing more than a sack of laundry. His improvised weapon – Mac could see now that it was a jagged piece of metal, some kind of torn bracket – cut a long, ragged slice into the side of her neck.

Mac threw up his hands again, tried to shout, but like every other time he'd attempted to speak, nothing came out. Just the sound of air moving over his lips. The guy looked back at him, still seeming to be surprised, and Mac gave him a helpless shake of his head. Willing the man to understand that he couldn't talk, couldn't explain with words. All he could do is gesture at the door, then back at himself.

"Y'open th'door, doc!" the man demanded, glancing past Mac again, but this time it was a little weaker. A little more distracted. "Y'open th'door!"

The clinicians behind Mac had apparently gained some more ground in the interim, because one of them spoke, and he was close enough that he didn't have to shout, or raise his voice. It was conversational. Like this was normal. "We can't override the doors, Mannuel. They're locked. But maybe there's another way. Where do you need to go?"

The man let loose with a heart-breaking wail at that, throwing himself backwards into the double doors and dragging the nurse with him. The doors didn't give, and he whimpered, shaking his head. The piece of metal continued scraping superficial wounds across Kristy's already bleeding throat, still dangerously close to critical blood vessels.

Mac did the only thing he could think of. He sharply clapped his hands.

The noise attracted the man's attention, just like he'd intended, and Mac pointed at one of the man's tattoos. "SEAL," he breathed, making the S hiss as loudly as he could. He'd recognize it anywhere, he'd seen Jack tease enough of the men, and this guy definitely fit the physical profile –

Mannuel glared at him, but stopped moving. MacGyver repeated himself, trying to exaggerate the motion. "SEAL?"

The other man glanced down at the tattoo in question, then back up at him, suspiciously. "You . . . know this?"

Mac nodded, then pointed at his chest. "EOD," he mouthed.

The other man's mannerisms changed abruptly; he gave Mac a shit-eating grin, made crooked by a pronounced sagging on the left side of his face. "'Bout time!" he crowed, in a hushed whisper. "I gotta get back, it's been . . . been-" His voice wavered, as did the metal in his hand, and Mac held his breath with Kristy as Mannuel struggled with some kind of realization.

Mac tapped his own chest again, loudly enough to regain Mannuel's attention, then gestured at the badge reader. "Let me," he breathed, again exaggerating the movement of his lips, and the man's eyes widened.

". . . can you?" he whispered back.

Mac nodded an affirmative, trying to project nothing but earnest truth. "Okay?" he mouthed, and then made as if he was going to approach.

The struggling man glared past him again, undoubtedly at the two clinicians in the hallway beyond. "You stay! Stay!" Kristy stumbled a little as her hair was tugged. The stain of blood on her scrubs was visibly moving down her chest; the manhandling wasn't helping the many wounds.

Taking a deep breath, Mac pushed the wheels forward again, ignoring the twinge in his chest. He did it slowly, giving the other patient an encouraging nod, and Mannuel scooted himself and his hostage over – but not in front of the glass of the door, not giving whoever was beyond it a shot – and gave him access to the badge reader.

It was the same color as the wall, very much like the one he'd observed outside of his own room, and Mac tried to ease his fingernails behind the housing. When he was unable, he frowned, then glanced back up at Mannuel with apology in his eyes. Using his right hand, the hand closest to both of them, he indicated the piece of metal in Mannuel's hand.

"I need that," he whispered, as loudly as he could. When the grin started slipping from Mannuel's face, Mac mimed prying off the badge housing.

"Please."

For a long moment, he didn't think it was going to work. Mannuel shifted his weight from foot to foot repeatedly, clearly aware enough to know that if he handed over his weapon, he reduced his leverage. Mac gave him another encouraging nod.

"It's okay," he tried, and gave the guy a small smile.

"Mannuel, _stop_ ," a disapproving voice ordered, from somewhere behind MacGyver – a voice he recognized instantly. "Talk to me. Do you have words?"

The patient's mannerisms again changed instantly, like a switch had been flipped. He bared his teeth, his lips curled higher on the right side than the left. "Lemme go!" he bellowed, and there was a definite slur to it. "Y'can't keep me here! I hafta _go_!"

"We've talked about discharge," Parsons replied, still disapproving, and Mac heard her heels click on the floor. A steady, normal walking pace, about halfway down the hallway. No wonder he hadn't heard a door open. "Do you remember what you said?"

Her patient gave a wordless cry of frustration in reply, straightening to his full height, and he angled the metal bracket for a killing blow.

"She's a civilian!" Parsons snapped. "You protect civilians!"

It wasn't the tactic Mac would have used, but it had an immediate effect. This time it was Mannuel who flinched, as if he'd only just realized what he was about to do. He looked down at the much smaller woman in his arms like he had no idea how she'd gotten there, and for a split second, Mac saw true awareness on the man's face.

The left side of it wasn't sagging as much.

Mac rapped his knuckles on the badge reader, and Mannuel's startled eyes shot to him.

Wordlessly, Mac pointed at the metal bracket.

The man stared at him a second, then glared down the hall, and thrust the piece of metal towards Mac, very nearly striking him in the shoulder with it. He accepted it, a little clumsily, and Mannuel immediately put the nurse into a chokehold, angling her so that once again, he could use her as armor.

"We need t'go," he muttered out of the side of his mouth. "Now _whip_!"

Mac nodded, risking another glance over his shoulder, and he found that the two clinicians had withdrawn a little, silent in their sneakers, and Dr. Parsons had taken their place. She was no longer advancing, a good twenty feet away, and she completely ignored him, like he wasn't even there. Fully focused on Mannuel.

"We agreed on discharge conditions," Parsons reminded him, still stern. "And you haven't met them yet. Do you remember?"

"I hafta _go_!" he insisted. "They're runnin' outta time!"

And he wasn't the only one. Mac took his focus off the two people struggling less than two feet away, and forced the edge of the – it looked like the bracket for a door hinge, how the hell this guy had gotten it he couldn't tell, but the metal had actually been torn, maybe pried off with something? – into the seam of the badge reader cover. He didn't want to pop it off, since it was anti-tamper. He had to find the –

And it was there on the bottom, where a standing attacker wouldn't see it, and a kneeling electrician would.

Or a man in a wheelchair.

Mac grit his teeth, trying to force clumsy fingers into the small space, trying to feel where the tape connected the small wire to a sensor. There should be a little button on the mechanism, or a tiny little toggle switch, and he used his fingernail more than his still partially-numbed fingertip to finally locate it. It only moved in one direction, and then he was able to pull the front panel off.

He dropped it in his lap, studying the interior of the badge reader intently. It was heavily computerized, with a battery backup, and tiny, individual wires crossed the mechanism rather than flat cable. Not ideal, given his physical limitations.

Behind him, Parsons hadn't stopped speaking with Mannuel. "They're not running out of time," she contradicted him, but slightly more patiently than before. "They're fine. You got a letter. Do you remember?"

"I REMEMBER EVERYTHING!" he bellowed, tightening his grip on the nurse, and Mac started glancing around, trying to figure out what he had to work with. The nurse didn't look like she had anything in her pocket, and he didn't have the dexterity to take apart a cellphone at this point anyway. He had his wheelchair, the front panel chassis –

Her badge, in pieces on the floor.

"I'm not a prisoner! You can't keep me here!"

"You're right," Parsons told him, sounding utterly unmoved by his outburst. "You're not a prisoner. You know exactly what you have to do so that it's safe for you to go home."

Mac leaned down and scooped up the two biggest pieces of Kristy's badge, using them like semi-insulated tweezers to grab hold of the tiny wire he needed. His hands were shaking, mostly from fatigue, and Mac briefly closed his eyes and concentrated.

Concentrated on drawing a straight line. Just like he'd practiced.

Beside him, he heard Kristy struggling to breathe. Mannuel was putting a lot of pressure on her windpipe, and he shifted restlessly at Parson's words.

"Screw you," he snarled. "I don' have _time_ for this!"

"You made the list, not me," she countered. "You told _me_ what had to happen before it was safe."

"I can't _go_ home!" he exploded, throwing himself back against the doors in frustration, and Mac froze, waiting until Mannuel was still again before teasing the tiny wire free of the board. "I gotta get back _out_ there, doc!"

"Why? To help them?" She continued, but Mac tuned her out, tracing the circuit board with his eyes. When he finally found what he was looking for, he leaned back, looking up at Mannuel beside him. The man was oblivious, glaring daggers at Parsons, and Mac hesitated, then reached out and tapped his arm.

Mannuel jumped, clamping down on what was probably an overwhelming instinct to lash out and break his wrist, and Mac held up the hand placatingly, and then gestured at the doors. Then he made a shoving motion. "Back away," he mouthed, and pointed at the push bar on the door.

Mannuel immediately put his eyes back on the doc – his more pressing enemy at the moment – but then he did shuffle himself and his hostage about a foot forward, off the door. Mac nodded, exaggerating the motion so Mannuel would see it in his peripheral vision, and got back to work.

Parsons took it in stride. "-pulled you out. They got you back to base. You were unconscious. The first time you woke up was in Kandahar. You opened your eyes, and there was a nurse wearing a hijab standing over you. What did you say to her?"

The edges of the badge plastic were just sharp enough to cut the wire insulation, and Mac painstakingly started peeling it back. Just enough to expose the delicate wire, he didn't want to –

His improvised wire strippers slipped, and the wire was severed. Mac couldn't help the curse that slipped out, but like everything else he'd said, it was almost silent. Mannuel didn't even notice.

"I . . . I-"

Mac took a deep breath, trying to tune him out, and studied the panel again. Plan A was out the window, and he'd just permanently locked the door. There was no way that magnet was going to release now, not unless he cut power and backup. And he couldn't do that, not from inside the badge reader. The only thing he could do from here was –

Was not ideal.

Mac hesitated, then started doing the math.

"- I tol'her she had . . . th'most beautiful eyes I'ver saw," Mannuel murmured. "She smiled at'me."

"That's right." The doctor modulated her voice to match his softer volume. "Then what did she say?"

Beside Mac, Mannuel shifted uneasily. "I . . . uh, I –" He hesitated, then adjusted his hold on the nurse as she stumbled, on the verge of losing consciousness. She was hanging onto his arm for dear life, trying to stay on her feet, and as soon as she fell, Mannuel was going to snap out of it and remember that what he really wanted was out.

And he'd take another hostage. A trained SEAL would be on top of Parsons in seconds.

Mac reached out and flipped a tiny little toggle, then pushed himself away from the wall, and Mannuel's confused eyes snapped to him. Mac met them, and he nodded.

"Go," he mouthed, and offered up the metal bracket.

Mannuel stared at him a moment, then his face shifted again, the sag became more pronounced. He took in the hallway, shifting the nurse in his arms so that she was on his left side – the side he would present once he pushed open the doors – and he snatched his makeshift weapon back. Mac couldn't tell if Kristy was actually in contact with the push bar when Mannuel backed into it and depressed it with his hip.

The only sound was a grunt, cut off abruptly as the current went into him, and Mac pushed himself back, getting clear of the mechanism and the two people, frozen against the door as a significant amount of electricity used their bodies to get to ground. After two endless seconds, the anti-tamper device released them, and they both crashed to the floor.

Mac was taken by surprise when he was yanked backwards with significant force, almost like a car that had just been thrown into reverse, and Dr. Parsons raced by him to crouch by the two bodies on the floor. Mac was spun before he could tell if they were even still breathing, and he grabbed the armrests as whoever had his chair raced him down the hall. By the time they came to the double doors that led to the hallway his room was on, all Mac had time to see was a group of people clustered by the exit – which was now open – and there were multiple security guards as well as additional white coats. An arm came around him and flashed a badge at the reader, and even though the white LEDs were still blinking over all the doors, the mechanism clicked, and he was pushed through despite his attempts to slow them down.

"Relax, you're okay," an unfamiliar male voice assured him – probably one of the two clinicians that had originally been in the hallway. "I'm taking you back to your room. Everything's fine. You're going to be okay."

Mac couldn't help it; he immediately tried turning around in the chair to glare at the guy. As soon as he grabbed the armrests, a _very_ firm hand came down on his right shoulder, and he stilled immediately. It wasn't worth wrestling over.

They cleared the hallway door, and a very familiar woman with bleached white hair shot out from the nurse's station, the very picture of concern. "Hey, handsome, you're good – I got him, Stan, I got him –" and there was a quick flurry of activity behind him. The only thing he cared about was the hand off his shoulder, and when it was removed Wanda didn't touch him. As soon as she got control of the wheelchair, Mac closed his hands around the hand rims and applied as much pressure as he could.

Where 'Stan' had overridden him, Wanda didn't. She didn't fight him at all, she just came around to the side and knelt there, eye to eye with him.

"Are they okay?" he mouthed.

She watched his lips, then winced sympathetically. "I don't know, handsome. Those doors pack a punch."

Which he was very well aware of. "Are they lethal?" he breathed, as loudly as he could.

He saw something in her eyes hesitate, and his stomach clenched.

"They can be," was all she said, and put a warm hand on his arm. "I gotta get you back in your room, but I _promise_ you that as soon as I know somethin', I will come and tell you."

Electricity was a fickle thing. The amount of current a human body could conduct varied too much to predict how much or little of it would fatally damage a human body. Your build, how much water you contained, how conductive your skin was at that moment, how conductive the material of the scrubs were. AC versus DC, frequency versus voltage. Even the standard law enforcement taser could be fatal in certain circumstances, and what the door had administered looked to be substantially higher –

But once he severed that wire, he'd only had two options. Turn on the badge reader's tamper warning and trigger the door's safety features, or tell Mannuel that he couldn't open the door, and hope that he gave up peacefully.

If Kristy hadn't been touching the push bar, she would have gotten her shock through Mannuel. He'd been sweating, if he'd sweated through his scrubs and hers, it could have been close to the same voltage he was exposed to. She was much smaller, and she'd already been injured, her heart had already been under stress.

There was just no way to know.

Wanda had him back in his room in a blink, and his bed was still lowered from when they'd transferred him to the chair a scant hour ago. She'd had time to change the sheets, but that was about it.

"Don't help me too much, now," she cooed at him, as if nothing at all had happened, like it was just another trip back from therapy. It took him longer than it probably should have to unclench his hands from the armrests.

It was a hospital. Maybe also a prison, but certainly a hospital. There was no better place to receive a shock, because they would get instant treatment. And either way there was nothing he could do about it.

So he let Wanda help him, using his legs as best he could - but not his arms or his pecs - to help her pivot his butt from the wheelchair to the mattress. He scooted when she asked him to, he didn't interfere as she hooked back up his IV and his catheter. He laid there passively and let her do her job as efficiently as she could. So that she could get back out there, and tell him what was going on.

Wanda pulled the fresh sheet up to his waist, placing his hacky sack next to his left hand like it was a baby's pacifier, and Mac very nearly threw it across the room. His reaction didn't go unnoticed.

"Look, I know you're frustrated, not scared, okay? I know you aren't in shock. We saw the whole thing on the security monitors." He glanced up at her in surprise, and the woman gave him a slow nod. "I know you know exactly what's going on, and I know you want to get up and go out there. But I _promise_ you, handsome, they're right where they need to be, and they're gettin' the help they need. I'm not babying you. I know you're just gonna sit there and worry 'til I get back, so this is just somethin' for you to fidget with 'til then."

She watched him expectantly until he gave her a curt nod, which she reciprocated, albeit more politely. "Almost forgot. Also got you some pretzels. Crunchy things help me when I'm anxious."

His snack. He'd totally forgotten.

And the meds. His enforced sleep study.

She must have seen the thought cross his face, because she straightened with a shake of her head. "No sleep study today. Nobody's sedating you unless you give us a reason – okay?" His nod was much faster, and Wanda gave him a bracing smile. "Dr. Parsons will be back when she can, and you two can discuss what happens after that. In the meantime, I'm gonna go snooping. If you need anything, you page me. You _page me_ ," she repeated, when he'd started nodding before she'd even finished. He met her eyes and gave her a more deliberate nod, then reached out and accepted the small cup of pretzel sticks she was offering, stuffing one in his mouth.

She watched him a moment more before she was sufficiently mollified, and the moment he heard the door click closed he swallowed the bite of pretzel, that tasted like salted wood in his mouth, and set the rest aside on his tray table. She'd forgotten to hook up his oxygen and he was glad of it, but she'd been smart enough to take his wheelchair away, which meant he was good and stuck.

A small white LED blinked at the foot of his bed, and Mac glanced at it before he could stop himself.

 **U OK**

There was no way of knowing if Riley had eyes in the facility, or just in the little white box they'd brought him, and Mac hesitated, then picked up his hacky sack, and used it as an excuse to sign his answer in a language only one other person on Earth knew.

Well, that wasn't _entirely_ true. He was pretty sure Boze had picked up a signal or two, since he and Jack sometimes used SS on the deck when Riley and Bozer were in the midst of an argument. But Boze probably didn't know this one.

 _I'm good._

And that was completely true. Mannuel hadn't touched him. He hadn't gotten shocked, hadn't even cut himself on the plastic badge. His chest was still twinging from using his arms to propel the wheelchair, but no worse than when he pushed himself up higher on the bed.

He expected Jack to call bullshit immediately, but the panel remained dark, and Mac restlessly worried the seam on the hacky sack. There was no point in reworking the math, he knew he didn't have all the necessary variables, but he couldn't help himself. Surely the safeguards keeping the 'patients' in the facility weren't designed to be lethal. They were designed to ensure there was no escape. And if even a quarter of the patients were as big as Mannuel –

He was a SEAL. He'd clearly had some kind of brain damage, the way his face was sagging indicated as much. And he clearly knew Dr. Parsons, it stood to reason he was one of her patients, since he had physical as well as neurological issues. Like him. Mac ran down the conversation in his head, trying to remember the words he'd tuned out. He couldn't, not perfectly, but he had more than enough to get the gist.

Mannuel had been trying to get out so he could go back for his men. Not remembering that they had in fact gone back for _him_ , gotten him out of something. Maybe an ambush. Maybe he'd been a POW. She'd said Kandahar, which was near the Afghanistan/Pakistani border. There were still plenty of active ops going on in that region. It was impossible to know how long he'd been in this facility. Maybe only a couple weeks, but maybe longer than Mac himself had.

He couldn't help but sympathize with him, and Mac's eyes strayed to the little white box, clamped to the end of his bed, with two bright orange gloves on top. The panel still wasn't blinking. Either Jack didn't have anything else to say, or Jack wasn't the one who'd signaled him, and they hadn't been able to translate his reply.

He knew exactly how it felt to worry about his team. If they hadn't come to visit him, even as infrequently as they had, he'd be planning his own escape. And if Mannuel's unit was still deployed, then truly the best they could do was the letter Parsons had mentioned. Since apparently video chats were forbidden.

The clock said only twenty minutes had passed before Mac's door clicked, and it was sneakers, not pumps, that padded around his curtain. Wanda didn't keep him in suspense.

"They're gonna be fine," she said with a smile, and Mac felt the relief in his very bones as he sagged back against his pillow pile. "Kristy's getting patched up as we speak, and Mannuel's stable and resting. Dr. Parson needs to be there with him for a little while, and then she'll come and check in with you. In the meantime, do you want some company?" She reached down and tapped his gloves. "Or maybe play some games?"

Given how much she frowned on the, in her own words, 'excessive' amount of time he used the device, he knew she was straight up trying to distract him, and he wholeheartedly supported her strategy. He went ahead and launched his mathematics and physics app, hoping for a few more electrical problems, so he could confirm for himself that he still remembered all the relevant laws and equations, and he truly _was_ missing the variables he thought he needed, but the app defaulted more towards velocity questions. All too soon he'd blown through his two lessons of the day, and had to switch to something else.

Wanda pulled up the stool, rolled back so she could see, and sat with him. She offered comments, or asked questions from time to time, and Mac found himself in the word library, entering "parallel" into the application so that he could continue his explanation, when his door clicked.

Wanda gathered herself and stood, patting him fondly on the arm. "You did good today, handsome. Real good," she told him, and then she lapped his bed, and passed Dr. Parsons right at the threshold of his privacy curtain. The two women exchanged a glance, he couldn't see their expressions from his angle, and then the doctor came around to his left, and took the stool that Wanda had just vacated.

He heard his door close, and he focused on the doctor at his side.

She didn't look any different than usual. Her hair was drawn back in the typical ponytail, there didn't seem to be any strain in her eyes, any additional stress in the way she held herself. It kind of reminded him of Matty, in a way, and he stopped to wonder exactly how much training the two women shared.

She raised an eyebrow at his examination. "I'm fine, thanks for asking," she told him bluntly. "How about you?"

He gestured, and the computer answered for him. "I'm good."

She nodded, almost to herself. "I saw." She settled a little more into the stool, then rested her arms on his bedrail, loosely clasping her hands. "Our technicians seem to think that you were actually trying to open the door for Mannuel."

He wasn't able to tell from her tone if it was an accusation or a question. And either way, he didn't have the words in his library to explain what he'd originally been trying to do, so he settled for "No. Yes. A little."

He'd never had any intention of letting Mannuel out of that hallway. Only of making him think he had. Mannuel had a weapon, had a hostage, and he was clearly dangerous. If he'd gotten into the next section of the facility, he would have been shot and killed by security. Walking through those doors would have been a death sentence.

But trapping Mannuel _in_ the doors, that would have made him a lot less dangerous. All Mac had been trying to do was get the doors to open just enough that Mannuel could get an arm through, and then the motors that assisted them would have frozen and locked, forcing Mannuel to have to try to muscle through. Forcing him to release his hostage, and essentially trapping him in place for a few moments. Taking away his leverage, and making him much less dangerous. Giving security enough time and opening to apprehend him with non-lethal means.

Essentially, he'd been setting the man up to get tased. Not straight up electrocuted. _Certainly_ not getting Kristy electrocuted in the process. And he had no real way to explain that to Parsons.

The corner of her lips turned up at his vague answer. "So you didn't intend for him to go free?"

Mac mutely shook his head.

She absorbed that. "You took a big risk, getting that close to an armed SEAL."

He didn't see it that way, but he also didn't see that he'd gain anything by arguing the point, so he stayed still. Parsons raised the other eyebrow.

"You disagree."

So much for not arguing. He offered her a shrug. "Agree to disagree?" he mouthed, as best he could.

Risk, yes. Big, no. A hostage in a wheelchair was unwieldy at best, and a liability at worst. Further, he was no threat to Mannuel. His eyes were level with the guy's hips. He could have been easily kicked over or kicked back. They also had a mutual purpose – both were patients. Both were military. It was calculated, and the probability had definitely been tipped in Mac's favor.

"MacGyver, do you remember how you got here?"

She'd hinted that she knew, but this was the first time she'd asked him directly if he remembered anything about the op, and he hesitated, then nodded.

"Tell me."

Mac blinked at her, and she made a lazy gesture towards his screen. "I need you to tell me in your own words."

 _Colonel Batuhan Aydin stabbed me and left me to die._ Mac was pretty sure only 'me' and 'left' were currently available in his word app. And he didn't feel like painstakingly entering the rest. So instead, he picked up both his hands and he haltingly mimed stabbing someone in the chest.

He didn't do a very accurate job of recreating the actual scene. After all, from Aydin's perspective, he would have been stabbing someone about eight inches shorter –

But from his own perspective, a much bigger, taller, more powerful guy than he was had put a combat knife through his chest.

That was her point.

Dr. Parsons slowly nodded. "You didn't put that together until just now, did you. The similarities between what happened before, and what could have happened today."

He didn't answer her; he figured his expression already had. He relived that moment every single time he woke up, literally every single day, and it hadn't even occurred to him for a second to worry that Mannuel was going to do the same.

"You analyzed everything else. You did what I assume you were trained to do. You identified the threat, you made a plan to neutralize it, you executed, you hit an obstacle, and you improvised. You may have saved two lives today, MacGyver. And I don't think it crossed your mind for one second that you couldn't or shouldn't have."

Couldn't or shouldn't have. That wasn't fair at all. Of _course_ it had crossed his mind that he might not have the dexterity or the strength to –

"Relax, MacGyver." There was some humor there, that cut off his admittedly defensive thought process at the pass. "All I meant is that you're a patient here. It wasn't your job, and you don't have authority here. You're not the one with the responsibility to keep people safe."

He stared at her a second, then shook his head. "Not your fault," he mouthed, and she smiled.

"That didn't occur to you either, until just now, did it." It was more of a statement than a question. "You were in here practicing mathematics because you were afraid that you'd made a mistake. Not by acting, not by trying to help, but in the solution you chose. You never should have been in that position, MacGyver. I made you a promise. I told you that you would be safe. You either didn't realize you weren't, or you didn't care. It didn't faze you at all."

Mac wasn't quite sure what she was getting at, and oddly, her smile broadened. Stranger still, it seemed sincere.

"I made your bestie a promise, too. I told him that you would be perfectly safe, and that if you were capable of checking yourself out of this facility, you didn't belong in it."

She leaned back, folding her hands in her lap, and Mac blinked at her, and waited for the other shoe to drop. She'd been harping on his stress levels for weeks, wanting him to assign a word to what 'scared' him, clearly she thought he hadn't felt safe the entire time he'd been here, and somehow this was going to –

"I think it's empirically evident that you can check yourself out of the facility," she interrupted his silent thought process. "You disabled a twelve thousand dollar security door with a piece of scrap metal and half a badge. I don't like breaking promises, and I'm certainly not going to break two in a single day. Are you ready to leave?"

MacGyver stared at her, his mind going utterly blank. Of all the things he expected –

But of course she had to wonder. He hadn't panicked. He hadn't responded poorly to any of her tests so far. Even when she intentionally subjected him to situations that ought to scare him – water, sedation, intentionally inducing nightmares – and now a patient who could so easily have killed him –

And it had never occurred to him to do anything other than what he did. What he always did. Solve the problem in front of him.

Dr. Parsons sat beside him silently, not giving him a single indication of what she thought. Letting him make the decision for himself. As if he _could_ make the decision, as if he had that authority, and she would honor it.

Was he ready to go.

And the answer was simple; the moment he realized it he felt an intense relief.

He shook his head.

Parsons gave him a long look. "No?"

He twitched his left hand, and his computerized voice replied. "No."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Have you figured out what's bothering you so much?"

And weirdly, he suddenly knew that too. At his nod, she stood, almost dismissively, and walked away. But he saw immediately that she wasn't leaving. She crossed to the far wall, not to grab medication but a pen and some kind of pad. She returned, ripping a sheet from it and turning it over, then handed him the pad with the torn sheet blank side up, and the pen.

"Can you write it down for me?"

It wasn't neat, or fast, but it was two relatively short words, and he had plenty of space. When he was done, he offered her the pad.

Dr. Parsons took it, and without even glancing at it, she folded the sheet of paper in half. Then she held it up in front of him, between two fingers. "The only one who needs to know this is you," she told him matter-of-factly, and then she set the folded piece of paper on his tray table, beside his uneaten pretzels. "I want you to keep this until you don't need it anymore."

MacGyver stared at the piece of paper for a long moment, and couldn't figure out why his eyes suddenly started pricking.

The doctor dropped one of her hands to his arm, and gave him a light squeeze. "You just solved a puzzle you've been working on for quite some time, and I want you to celebrate that. I'll be back with something a little more appropriate than pretzels." She patted his arm a couple times, then stood.

"I know you're wired, but try to relax. You're due for an adrenaline crash any minute now."

He chuckled a little, the sound as muffled as everything else, but she heard him anyway, because she shook her head as she lapped the bed. "I mean it. Keep the gaming to a minimum, or Wanda will confiscate those gloves."

But Dr. Parsons didn't; she simply left, he heard her heels on the tiles outside before the door clicked shut. And that was calculated too; she was giving him the option to wind down using the method of his choosing. And what he wanted to do was just close his eyes for a minute.

So he did.

-M-

Third time's the charm! I mean, I missed posting on Friday, but holiday weekend. And what better way to celebrate the 4th than with MacGyver. Happy Belated Explosives Day!

Things are picking up (finally!). Dr. Parsons started putting Mac through tests to figure out his triggers, but he's clearly on to her, and so far he's handled everything she can throw at him. Riley and Bozer are on an op with the new agents, and it's pretty clear there's definitely room for improvement as far as team cohesion goes. Mac leaves art therapy only to be confronted with a real emergency, that leaves him wondering if maybe he's still got things he needs to work on before he's ready to go home.

(Also, the reason this chapter is so much better than the last two? My Wonderful and Mysterious Beta Reader™ is back! And I, for one, am very grateful.)


	36. Chapter 36

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning** : Super tiny tear-jerk warning. Like, way tiny.

-M-

Matty glanced at the caller ID and very nearly didn't pick it up.

Very nearly.

Jill, ever intuitive, determined this was not a videocall she should observe, and she bobbed her head and scurried out of the room. Matty waited until the door had closed before she put the call up on the screen.

"Director."

The other woman, appearing to tower over her on the War Room monitor, inclined her head. "Director."

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Lest it sound too sincere, Matty politely set down the tablet and cocked her head. The State Department calling, so soon after-

Director Samantha Bosch completely ignored the disingenuous question. "One of my contacts in the Secret Service forwarded me a rather interesting report from one of their satellite facilities. In light of current investigations, I thought you might find it relevant."

A request to download a video file flashed on the display, and after waiting the appropriate amount of time, Matilda stepped forward and tapped 'Accept.'

Director Bosch continued, even as it downloaded. "Their conclusions were mixed. My contact didn't make it sound as if any significant follow-up was indicated at this time."

The file finished downloading, and Matty let it play on the main channel, so they were both viewing it. It was security cam footage of what appeared to be the hallway of a hospital – the date and timestamp were obfuscated, but the remainder of the footage was crystal clear. Matty watched, silently as a hulking figure in blue scrubs shuffled calmly into view. In front of him, a pair of double doors opened out into the hall, and a nurse in more colorful scrubs emerged, towing a wheelchair. The blue-scrubbed man pounced on the nurse, yanking her back and pinning her against him, while the wheelchair – and patient – she'd been towing rolled to a stop.

The patient in that wheelchair was a blond male.

The blue-scrubbed man fully subdued the nurse, holding something to her throat and apparently speaking in her ear, but Matty didn't hear any sound. Then he started hauling her towards the large double doors marking the exit, even as the patient in the wheelchair rotated it, so he could see. He didn't seem surprised or frightened; in fact, after glancing the other direction down the hall, he didn't do anything at all. He simply watched the man drag the nurse to the door.

The man waved her badge at the door, but apparently the hall had already been locked down, because nothing happened. There was a small struggle, the nurse shook her head, and the man again tried the door. Something fell – maybe the badge? – and MacGyver glanced over his shoulder again. Not ten seconds later, two other figures in scrubs, a man and a woman, just barely entered the bottom of the frame. Blue Scrubs – an inmate, Matty surmised – changed his grip on the nurse, shoving her forward, showing them that he had a hostage, and there was blood visible on her throat. Mac shifted his grip on the hand-rims of his wheelchair. He looked like he might have spoken, then he rolled himself closer to the other patient. He held up his hands, then gestured first to the door, then himself.

It looked like he was offering to help.

The offer wasn't well received; Blue Scrubs seemed to think it over, then shook his hostage hard enough to make her teeth rattle, and Mac waved his hands, trying to regain their attention. He again made his silent offer to help with the doors, and there was a brief pause, then the inmate shouted something before he threw himself deliberately back into the doors, trying to force them open. By this time, Matty could make out blood on the nurse's scrubs, and the two other nurses in frame had advanced. Blue Scrubs shook his head, like he was slinging water off his face, and then Mac raised his hands and clapped them.

Because of course he couldn't speak. It was the only way he could make noise.

Third time was the charm. He gestured at Blue Scrubs, who glanced down at his own arm, and even though Matty knew for a fact that Mac couldn't so much as croak, some kind of conversation seemed to pass between them. Blue Scrubs yelled at the two nurses at the bottom of the frame, who backed off in response, and then he and Mac exchanged a few more words before Blue Scrubs scooted over and let Mac approach the badge reader. He quickly evaluated it, then got Blue Scrub's attention, and pointed at whatever weapon he was holding at the nurse's throat. Even with the silent video, the message was clear. And smart. Mac was telling him he needed the weapon to break the panel.

A new shape appeared in the bottom of the frame, a woman in a white coat, and Matty watched her carefully. If she wasn't mistaken, that was Simone Parsons. She got Blue Scrub's attention and they traded words, then Blue Scrubs made as if to kill the hostage. Something stopped him dead, though; he flinched, then looked back down at his hostage, then at Mac, who pointed again to the weapon.

After another pause, Blue Scrubs thrust it at him, and Mac had the panel apart in under fifteen seconds. Some kind of conversation passed between the doctor and Blue Scrubs, then Mac leaned over and picked up the pieces of badge off the floor. Blue Scrubs became agitated, again throwing himself against the doors, and Matty watched Mac freeze. After a tense moment, Blue Scrubs resumed yelling, and then Mac hesitated before he reached out and touched the guy.

Matty expected Mac to go flying, and it looked like he expected it too, the way he withdrew his hand. But Blue Scrubs didn't hit him, and Mac made a shooing motion. Getting Blue Scrubs away from the door. Then he continued whatever he was doing. It only took him another thirty or so seconds; she saw him lean up and away from the panel, and it looked like he said something to Blue Scrubs before he offered back the weapon. Blue Scrubs snatched it back, shifted his hostage so that she would serve as a human shield, and backed up into the door.

Right as he did so, Mac scooted himself away from both the badge reader and Blue Scrubs, and the doctor, along with the other two nurses, charged the door. Blue Scrubs and the nurse seemed frozen in place for a few seconds, then both hit the ground, apparently unconscious. The doctor and one of the clinicians descended on them, even as the other grabbed MacGyver's wheelchair and pulled him to safety.

The file ended with the double doors opening, showing a small army of people and security on the other side.

Director Bosch delicately cleared her throat. "It appears Agent MacGyver attempted to circumvent the badge reader and trigger the doors to open, but inadvertently severed the wire and triggered the panel's anti-tamper feature instead. At that point, anyone who attempted to open the doors received a fifty thousand volt shock. Still, according to the report, both the patient and the nurse are recovering."

Matty parsed through those details. "Did they say how the patient came to be armed and loose in their secure facility?"

Samantha shook her head. "Only that they're still completing their preliminary investigation, and that another nurse had been assaulted and is in stable condition after surgery."

So she could assume he attacked at least one other person before he took Mac's nurse hostage. "Did the patients know each other?"

"It's unclear from the report. It did, however, say that MacGyver was unable to articulate what he was trying to do and why."

That part Matty already knew. And she had to agree; Baby Einstein's explanation had been pretty damn vague. "You said the report was inconclusive."

"Mixed, actually. Based on the footage, they believe that Agent MacGyver was attempting to save the nurse by negotiating her release in return for opening the door, and he made a mistake. He's being held twenty-four hours for observation."

Which meant his care team was refusing to let anyone else interview him. Probably on the grounds that he may have been upset by the violence. "Do they think MacGyver was also trying to escape?"

"I think the more cynical members of the investigative panel are leaning in that direction," Bosch told her bluntly. "But even a casual observer can tell he had no intention of going through that door. According to his medical file, he's not physically capable of getting more than a few hundred yards on his own."

So the going theory was that Mac was trying to do the right thing, and fucked it up. Still, better they thought of him as incapable rather than a brilliant mastermind who was faking his injuries.

"Then again, according to that same medical file, he isn't capable of speaking or writing, and yet there's video footage of him to the contrary," Bosch added drily. "The report is recommending a secondary eval team to assess his condition and determine if Agent MacGyver is truly incompetent to testify."

So much for no 'significant follow-up.' Still, it didn't sound like they were going to rip him out of the facility that very second. They'd wait out the twenty-four hour window, at minimum. "And what's your opinion?"

The other woman gave her a cold smile. "The State Department is monitoring the situation."

Monitoring wasn't taking direct action, and it was the best she could hope for. Matty mirrored her expression. "Thank you for passing along the report."

The other director inclined her head. "And how is your own analysis progressing?"

Tit for tat. Matty's own contacts within the Secret Service and Homeland would have passed this to her, eventually, so it wasn't exactly a golden egg. However, it _was_ a professional courtesy that Matty wasn't willing to let go unacknowledged. "As well as can be expected. I would appreciate your interpretation of your department's involvement, to see how closely our conclusions align. I'll have a draft forwarded over later today."

"I look forward to it." Matty was about to end the video chat when Samantha continued. "For what it's worth, my contact thinks MacGyver probably saved both their lives. I hope it's an indication that he can eventually recover."

Matilda kept her expression carefully neutral. "So do I." Then she closed the window.

Her tablet dinged, indicating that she'd gotten the written report as well, and she skimmed it as she walked down the hall to the elevator. Director Bosch's summary was spot on. Neither nurse who had been attacked had been able to give a statement by the time the memo went out; it was the typical after-incident report. Reassuring the Secret Service and DHS that there had been no breach and no loss of patients or classified intel. Thanks to Riley's wonderbox, Dr. Talbot had been tipped off that something had happened pretty much in real time, about five hours ago. Matty made a mental note to ensure she got a copy of those nurses' statements. They might be able to shed some light on what really happened in that hallway.

Like if Mac really _was_ capable of speaking, or he'd simply been whispering and hoping Blue Scrubs could read lips.

And also a detailed analysis of what Mac had done to that badge reader.

The elevator dinged and released her on the proper floor, and Matty let herself into Medical, ignoring the nurse on call and proceeding directly to the Talbots' office. Tim was elsewhere but Melissa was there at her desk, charting. Jack was standing about ten feet away, arms folded, watching the live feed from MacGyver's room.

Matty suppressed an eye roll. "I thought I told you more working, less creeping."

Jack turned his head just far enough that he could see her in his peripheral vision. Otherwise he didn't move. "Op's done. Eggerstein and his boys are gift wrapped and en route to our holding site for interrogation. Team's headed back, ETA two hours."

It was nothing she didn't already know. "And you need to be prepping for the debrief."

"You mean the ass reaming?" His tone didn't significantly change. "Trust me, I got it typed up all nice and pretty."

She was fairly sure neither 'nice' nor 'pretty' would apply. Still, eye of the beholder. "How is he?"

"Zoned out," Jack grunted, turning back to the TV. "Woke up about half an hour ago. Can't tell if they gave him somethin' to take the edge off or not."

"Well, he had a busy morning." At her words, Melissa looked up curiously from her charting, and Matty used an index finger to flick the footage from her tablet onto the screen behind the doctor's desk. "This is from five hours ago."

Despite the fact he hadn't been invited, Jack also turned away from the live image of Mac, who was staring off into space, and onto the footage from earlier in the day. The three of them watched it silently until the escaped patient and his hostage hit the ground.

Melissa found her voice first. "Did MacGyver know that patient? Because that looked like –"

Matty shook her head. "I'm almost positive that's Parsons, but the report doesn't say if Mac knew the other patient. Did it look like he was speaking, to you?"

The female Dr. Talbot frowned. "It certainly looked like he was communicating somehow, with more than just the gestures, but we've already heard him try to vocalize. The best he can do is whisper, and it's barely audible. It certainly couldn't be heard over the alarms." Then she paused. "Were there? Alarms?"

"Not in a looney bin." Jack had crossed his arms again, and appeared to be trying to burn a hole through the screen with his eyes. "Alarms woulda thrown the whole place into total chaos. That SEAL didn't look like he was shoutin' over one, either."

"Him?" Matty indicated Blue Scrubs, and Jack gave her a short nod.

"You can tell by the way he handles that nurse, the chokehold he used. That and his ink. I think that's how Mac got his trust, he pointed one of 'em out."

She'd seen that too, that glance down at his own arm before he'd seemed to start really interacting with Mac – even smiling at him. So Mac had recognized it as well, or at least enough to start the conversation. "The working theory is that Mac was trying to negotiate release of the hostage in return for opening the door." She stopped herself from saying anything more, not wanting to influence their opinion, and Jack's frown deepened.

But it was Melissa who spoke. "He didn't react until it was clear she was in real danger, but I didn't see him . . ." She walked up and tapped the screen, starting the footage again from the beginning. "At first he just watches, but then – there." She paused it. "That might be when the nurse got nicked the first time. You can see him tense up." She let it play again. "He tries to get the attention off her, then he . . . there's the first time he offers to open the door, clearly he's not believed – I don't see him indicating her at all."

And Matty hadn't, either. It made sense, that Mac would want the other patient to focus more on him, try to keep the guy calm, and asking for the hostage could have easily just upset the ex-SEAL more. But not once did Mac gesture at the nurse. More tellingly, he voluntarily offered the man's weapon back to him once he'd finished with the reader.

And that was the detail Jack latched onto. "He gave him back his shiv, so he knew damn well that door was gonna shock the hell outta 'em. Mac was goin' for incapacitation." Jack blew out a resigned breath. "Matty, this is bad."

She agreed. The badge reader itself had the same kind of anti-tamper safeguard as the door. Mac shouldn't have been able to just pry it off the wall without getting shocked himself; he had to have disabled that feature to take it apart in the first place. Meaning he'd recognized and disabled the anti-tamper function, and then intentionally re-enabled it so the door was able to deliver the shock. That he'd risk the life of the nurse to the anti-tamper feature . . . that had to have been a last resort. Whatever wire he'd severed, that had probably been an accident, been his first solution, but when he wasn't able to pull it off, he'd run out of other options.

And any halfway competent investigation would reveal that. Mac had screwed up, true, but it wasn't because he didn't understand how to make the door open. He'd just demonstrated on candid camera that he was quite capable of bypassing part of the facility's state-of-the-art security. And he'd done it in less than three minutes, using an improvised knife and a piece of plastic.

If he could do that, he could find a way to answer the panel's questions.

Which left only his emotional competence in question. Matty looked over at the live stream of Mac, who was awake, staring off at nothing. He had one of his gloves on, but he wasn't interacting with any program. His expression was utterly blank, a million miles away. "What has he done since the attack?"

Melissa immediately picked up her chart – her chart on Mac, Matty realized. Jack didn't need any such reference material.

"When he got back, he stayed on edge 'til he heard they were okay. Then he screwed around with his video games for a while, until his talk with the doc. They got a little ice cream into him, but his heart wasn't in it. After that it was lights out until about half an hour ago, and he's been like this ever since."

He certainly didn't look on edge now, and she wondered if Jack was right, if they'd given him something to help him relax. Then again, she wasn't sure why it would be indicated; he'd appeared to handle himself very well. "Is he in some type of shock?"

"Hard to say. He was clearly concerned for the nurse and the other patient, and given what we've just seen, that makes sense," Melissa pointed out. "He went straight to his math game, which makes me think he was second-guessing himself."

Testing himself, to make sure he could still do the calculations correctly in his head. That tracked with the severing of whatever wire being accidental. He hadn't wanted to shock them both, he just hadn't been able to find another solution within the constraints. And the fact that both had lived didn't change the fact that it could have gone another way. Second-guessing himself could definitely explain his current behavior.

"Is there any reason to believe he's not competent to testify?"

Jack rounded on her like she'd suggested they draw and quarter him. "He told his doc flat up that he don't think he's ready!"

Which she knew very well. He'd also apparently told her what was freaking him out every time he woke up – not that they'd been able to make out what was on the sheet of paper. She held up a hand, and was actually a little surprised when it worked, and Jack stopped talking. "Right now his care team is isolating him for observation, but you and I both know that will only hold up twenty-four hours. This report is already in circulation. They'll have their experts there by the end of the day, ready to go first thing tomorrow morning. I'm not asking what Mac wants. I'm asking if he's capable."

Jack stayed quiet, and Matty wondered if he was grinding his teeth. Melissa hesitated before she waded into the heavy silence. ". . . especially in light of what we just saw . . . yes. He's mentally and physically capable. I don't think it will be easy for him, but even with that looping trauma hitting him every day, he's coping. Now, the quality of intel he can provide? That's much harder to answer." She indicated the chart she was keeping on Mac. "He's not always able to keep track of things chronologically - putting events in the order in which they happened. He's been making that mistake consistently enough that I don't think it's just the drugs. Now, his physician has only been testing him on memories he's made since the coma, so it could be that everything before that is still intact, but . . . his testimony may be inconsistent."

Inconsistency, she could work with. And Melissa said he'd been tested, which meant it was already documented in his official medical record. It could be spun in any direction she needed.

Which really only left one thing to do.

"When Riley lands, I'll have her disable the two-way communication functions on this device." There was simply too great a risk that further investigation would reveal it. "You have until then to get Blondie's attention."

She could actually hear Jack's jaw creak as he pried it open. But his voice, when he spoke, was remarkably steady. "And you want me to tell him . . . what? We're bailin' on him right when he needs us the most?"

"Tell him the truth. That we saw what happened today. We may not be able to visit or communicate with him for a little while, but we can still see him and we know exactly where he is. Tell him to do the best he can, and that no matter what happens next, no matter _who_ rattles his cage, we've got him."

"Is that the truth?" He never took his eyes off the screen, didn't change his tone at all. "Oversight's still claimin' him as one of ours?"

Matty felt her eyes narrow, but she took a page from Dalton's book, and kept her eyes on the screen. " _I'm_ claiming him as one of ours. Oversight is focused on the big picture."

Jack snorted, then dropped his eyes to her. They hadn't lost any of their intensity. "You better be ready to back that up."

She heard loud and clear exactly what he wasn't saying, and she let him see a sliver of her own anger. "And you better get typing."

-M-

"So." Riley leaned comfortably on her elbows on the lab counter beside him. "That was awesome."

He knew she was talking about the op debrief, not the state of his trashed kit, and Bozer angrily continued to pull out the materials Monnegar had freakin' wasted. "I know I should say I'm sorry, but I'm not," he started hotly, and she held up her hands in clear surrender.

"I'm not here to fight, Boze. Just . . . making the observation."

"Well no duh." He made a disgusted face as he pulled out a ziploc bag of ruined, half-cured bullet and knife scars. All his hard work, reduced to a congealed, putty-like glob of torn flesh and hair. The perfect visualization of the way he felt. "Matty said if we couldn't work with 'em, they were gone. I want them gone." Then he thought better of it. "Alicia's not too bad," he allowed grudgingly, slapping the baggie onto the counter with a wet splat. "But Monnegar-"

"Monnegar's not the problem," Riley told him bluntly. "And you know that."

"Do I? Do I really? Because I _tried_ , Riley, I really did," he pressed, as she gave him her raised eyebrow skeptical look. "I _tried_ to talk to him about sports, which are his thing – _can I get a little noise discipline?_ " He was proud of how caucasian-ly midwestern he managed to sound – more than a halfway decent impression of Tom Monnegar. "I tried to bond over scars – literally while I was bonding them to him. Got like three sentences outta him. He doesn't wanna be here any more than I want him here." Her eyebrows were continuing to rise, almost like the mercury in a thermometer, and Bozer finally realized that he was in danger. "At least your new girl squad recruit is _pretending_."

Riley's head cocked to the side a little, in a worryingly Matilda Webber-like way. "Alicia's actually pretty cool. And I'll give you that she's putting in serious effort. But why the hell should Monnegar? Everyone in a half mile radius could tell you didn't like him the second you met him."

Bozer crossed his arms with a huff. "He took my seat. It's _my seat._ "

"And how was he supposed to know that, Boze? It was the first time he ever met you. It's not like there aren't twenty seats on that plane-"

"My point exactly! Out of twenty seats, he took _mine_!"

"And why exactly is that seat yours?" she asked sweetly. Like she didn't know.

He gestured animatedly at the imaginary fuselage. "Because it's in front of the couch and that's where –"

Where Mac always sat. Or they made him, usually, because he was usually in motion and it was easier to let him take over the couch to make stuff than it was to constantly have to shift when he kept getting in and out of the seat next to you.

So he and Jack took the two seats across from the couch, and Riley was almost always in the tech bay. Everyone was always in earshot of the other.

Riley gave him a sarcastic smile. "I think he's got it."

"So what?" Bozer couldn't keep the anger out of his voice. "You've been walkin' this line since the first time you went to visit Mac. Do you not _want_ him to come back?" The way she'd interacted with Mac, the way she was still so heads down in the work, like she couldn't look him or Jack in the eye. He'd thought it was guilt, but she was the one who said not to make waves, she was the one who was so buddy-buddy with Agent Wright –

He was sure the betrayal was all over his face. " . . . you don't want him to come back," he said slowly, as realization dawned.

Beside him, she stiffened a little, but she didn't lean up off the counter. "I don't want to force that expectation on him," she countered. "If he wants to come back, that's great. But if he decides he wants to study the effect of astrophysics on – on tree frogs in Colorado, then –"

"What? _What?_ That doesn't even make sense! Are there even tree frogs in Colorado-"

She waved an arm. "That's not the point, Bozer! I don't want him to think that he _has_ to come back!"

Bozer turned to face her, and she mirrored him, that same tightness around her eyes, like she was trying too hard to hide something. And Wilt was tired of it. "Neither do I! But I want him to know that he's got his place here until _he_ decides that he doesn't want it!" He stabbed his finger on the lab counter for emphasis. "I'm not gonna just turn around and replace him-"

"Bozer, we _have_ to!" she snapped, then took a deep, silent breath. "If he comes back and finds out we're dysfunctional without him, what do you think he's going to do? How's he going to feel? Sure, it'll be different once Jack is back, but if Mac thinks that we're not safe out there, if we can't show him that we've got this, then do you really think he's going to sit at home and be okay with that? With the idea that you might go off on a mission and not come back? How the hell did _you_ feel when you learned what he really did – what we really did? Didn't you think about every single time he used to come home with injuries and excuses?"

Bozer shook his head, still flabbergasted. "It's not the same-"

"It's exactly the same! He will never be okay with you, or me, or Jack going out there without him unless he knows – he _knows_ – that we're going to be okay without him. I'm not saying we replace him, but we've _got_ to find a way to do this without him because anything else isn't fair _to him."_

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "So that's it, then. You think we should just - move on."

"Yes! How is he supposed to move on if we can't?" She crossed her arms, pacing to the opposite bench. "The job is not who he is, Boze."

He waved a hand in the air, almost sending a spray can of mold release flying. "You don't think I know that?! You don't think I know exactly who he is?! He's my _best friend_ , Riley! I've got him no matter what!"

"Then show him that! Get your own shit together! Show him that he doesn't have to handle everything, and save everyone. That you don't _need_ him to be anything other than who he is. That whoever that is is enough. Because if we can't show him that, he's going to try to be what he thinks he _has_ to be."

" . . . and you don't think he's him anymore," Bozer finished the unspoken sentence.

The look she gave him brought him up short; it was missing the anger, the guilt, the sadness he'd expected. Something else was there in its place. Something . . . older. "I _know_ he's not the same guy who left for Amsterdam," she told him, her voice quiet but sure. "Kadir Hakan was in your _house_ , Boze. They got him, they got me, they got Matty, they could have gotten you. He almost _died._ He's facing freakin' _treason_ charges. You're his best friend, you know him way better than I do – better than all of us do. You know exactly how much of that he's taking personal responsibility for. Tack on all the physical therapy? The sitting around with nothing to do but think? The risk that maybe he's _not_ going to just bounce back like he always has before?"

She shook her head, slowly at first, then like she meant it. "He's different, but he's not less than. We need – we need _not_ to need anything from him. When he gets back, I want to be in a place where we can give _him_ what _he_ needs. Whatever that is. I don't want to dictate to him what that will be, or influence him. And the only way I know how to do that is to be so damn okay that he can't possibly feel guilty about asking me for something. If you've got a better idea, I am all ears."

Need not to need. He hadn't thought about it like that. If they just – just went on without him, wouldn't Mac feel like he was being left behind? Like they'd just assumed that he wasn't going to be capable of coming back? Wouldn't it be the same as influencing Mac to doubt himself, to doubt that he still had a place? Had their trust? Their confidence?

But Riley had a point. Showing him he still had their trust had nothing to do with Phoenix. They could leave the front door wide open and maintain his badge access and yet show him in a thousand different ways that he didn't belong anymore. Which meant the opposite was also true. There were a thousand ways to show him that he _did_ belong, without ever setting foot in the building.

The ways he trusted, he _needed_ Mac, had nothing to do with work.

The job didn't matter. The entire time he'd been sitting in that room, holding Mac's hand, not once had he mourned that his boy wouldn't be on the plane with him, headed to Spain to save the world. He'd mourned that Mac wouldn't be with him – anywhere. At his bachelor's party. Holding his firstborn. Getting to hold _Mac's_ firstborn. Firepit beer drinking. Going on adventures of any sort, world-saving or otherwise. Having his best friend in his life is what he needed, whether they worked at the same place, whether they even lived in the same state.

Mac, just Mac, was enough. And maybe there was a better way to make him understand that than enforcing an empty seat at the table for him. Or maybe he was too focused on the wrong table.

Bozer found that he'd dropped his eyes to the lab floor, and when he dragged them back up again, Riley gave him a slow nod. "Yeah," she said thickly. "So if Tom's not gonna work, he's not gonna work. But we need to pick _someone_ , dude. We need to be safe out there without Mac."

He didn't really know what to say. "Were you always this smart?"

She gave him a slow, broad grin. "Yep." Then she crossed the aisle and came up beside him again, leaning on the counter before bumping his shoulder. "Thanks for finally noticing."

He bumped her back, and swallowed his throat back into shape. "Girl, I already knew you walked on water."

"That too," she admitted, and he reached over and pulled her into a hug.

"You really okay?"

"Getting there," she assured him, hugging him tight. "I'm getting there. You?"

He squeezed her back. "Yeah, long as I got friends like you." Then he sighed, and let her go. "But you might see me wearing a pretty impressive shiner tomorrow."

"Dude, you seriously might wanna give Tom a day to cool off." If the op had been contentious, the debrief had been positively vicious. It was good advice.

"Yeah, you're probably right." He turned back to his kit. "This'll take me another couple hours to clean up and restock. Wanna grab dinner after?"

She picked up the baggie of half-cured, ruined prosthetics. "Love to," she told him, wrinkling her nose. "But I've gotta poke through all the servers we just confiscated. Gonna be a long night."

Not their first. "Cool. When I finish up here, I'll bring dinner to you. Greek?"

The congealed flesh was discarded in the nearest trashcan. "Oh my god, hummus and pita chips would be freakin' amazing."

Bozer gave her a few wrist twirls and a deep bow. "Your wish is my command."

She snorted but didn't say anything else, and he watched her wave to Sparky as she headed out of the lab. Then he took in his disheveled kit, and sighed.

The debrief had been a total disaster. Worse than the op, if that was possible. But still, they'd only given the verbal debrief. After-action reports hadn't been filed yet – at least, he hadn't filed his. And if Riley was right, if Mac needed to know they were okay in order to take the time he needed for himself, then –

Then cleanup couldn't exactly wait. Once the reports were in, it was essentially record. And assuming Mac's network access still _did_ work, he'd be able to read them once he got back.

Which he was totally gonna do. Even if he needed a break first.

It took about half an hour to write it up, and after he submitted it, Wilt glared halfhearted at his still-trashed kit. Then picked up the brick of sulfured clay, which still bore its entirely too obvious ring of red masking tape, marking it as a material that should _not_ be stored near any material marked with an equally obvious ring of green masking tape. Red light, green light. It was so simple even Jack could do it.

But Riley was right. He hadn't explicitly said that to Monnegar. Just like the seat on the plane. The guy hadn't known the custom prosthetics wouldn't cure if the tin-cure silicone was near sulfur. He probably wouldn't have given a shit even if he had known, a part of Bozer's mind growled, but he shoved it down, grabbed the modeling clay brick, and reluctantly headed out of the lab.

Their team was the only one recently returned from an op, and the locker room was mostly empty. A shower was running on the men's side, and Bozer thought about calling out before he decided that was the best way to make a bad situation worse.

 _Hey, I just trash talked you in front of our boss. Let me start an argument while you're naked._ There were just too many 'dropped the soap' jokes in there to be comfortable with.

Lying in wait seemed like an equally bad idea, and Bozer thought it through another second, then ducked his head into the last row of lockers, just to check. There was a go bag on the bench, mostly packed, and its owner was nowhere to be seen. Probably whoever was in the shower.

Wilt turned to leave and jumped about a foot into the air as he realized there was someone standing less than a foot behind him. The figure stared impassively at the block of clay Bozer brandished in his face, and once he swallowed his heart back into his chest, Bozer slowly lowered it.

"Man, what the hell is wrong wi'chu?!" he demanded, and Agent Tom Monnegar gave him a flat, unfriendly look. The man had clearly just gotten out of the shower, and his short-cropped, dark hair was for once unkempt, tousled from being towel-dried. He was also wrapped in only a towel, and even though he had a hand on the tuck that was keeping it on his hips, Bozer was still pretty sure he'd lose to the guy in a fist fight.

Monnegar didn't say a word. He just glared.

Bozer glared a little himself, then cleared his throat – and made sure his voice was lower – before he spoke again. "I'm glad you're here. I wanted to catch you before you left."

Tom didn't move a muscle. And he had quite a few of them, as Wilt had found out when he'd had to cover the both of them in scars. After all, it was hard to convince someone you were a career mercenary when your skin was baby-butt smooth. And the first set of painstakingly crafted evidence of bullets, burns, and knives had been completely ruined when Monnegar had shoved all Bozer's stuff to one side of the table – including the brick of modeling clay he was still kinda holding like a weapon – to work on his own stupid shit, like taking his ten guns apart.

Thinking about it wasn't really helping to keep him calm, and Wilt held up the clay. Monnegar did the alpha male equivalent of rolling his eyes.

"Still with the playdough?"

Bozer _barely_ kept from snapping at the other man. First off, it was forty dollar professional grade modeling compound, nothing like the crap little kids ate in kindergarten. Second –

He cut the thought process off at the pass. "I – was a little out of line in our debrief earlier. I wanted to tell you that I corrected that in the written report."

The unfriendly look didn't go anywhere. Monnegar continued to glare down at him.

Fine. He refused to let it rattle him. "Also, for future reference, if you see anything of mine marked with red tape," and he indicated it on the modeling clay, "it means it can't be placed or stored near anything marked with green tape."

Tom didn't even blink.

Bozer stared at him a moment more, then dropped the brick with a shrug. "Whatever. Just thought you should know."

The other agent subtly shifted his weight, and Bozer couldn't help but almost take a step back. "That you did the bare minimum? Yeah, got that loud and clear."

"Man, you know what?" It was out of his mouth before Bozer even thought. "I'm tryin'na be the bigger guy here, and I'm not asking you to make it easy, but could you be any more of a dick?"

He kind of half-expected Tom to make a joke of it, however cutting, but the other agent surprised him by simply walking past him to his go-bag on the bench. Bozer turned and watched him, but Monnegar apparently thought the conversation was done, because he yanked open a locker and started rifling through it.

"Good talk," Bozer half-growled, staring at the open locker door a few seconds before shaking his head and walking away. He got about two steps.

"You're all talk. That's all you do." The other agent came back around the door of the locker with deodorant, which he applied in the same deliberate, perfectly controlled manner he did everything else. "What I don't get is why anyone listens."

Bozer wasn't quite sure what to say, and after the silence became downright uncomfortable, Monnegar capped his deodorant and dug back into his locker. "You're nothing. No military background, no field skills, no formal training. Not even a damn Arts degree. You bumble your way through ops that other people would _kill_ for an opportunity to run. You disrespect the job, you disrespect your coworkers, and you disrespect the Director."

Wilt felt his head rear back. "Nuh-uh. No. Nope. No one disrespects Matty –"

"And she lets you," Monnegar continued, as if Wilt hadn't started speaking. "I really don't get it. Dalton, Carter, Zee, even Webber, they all fucking love the company mascot."

Wilt paused. ". . . how do you know Zee? And how do you –"

The other agent dropped his towel and sat on the bench, fishing a pair of boxer shorts out of the bag, and Bozer resolutely kept his eyes up. Monnegar sent him an ugly smirk.

"I did what actual agents do when paired up. I read your file, _Wilt_." His dark eyes cut a direct path to the front of Bozer's pants, and he actually did take a step back at that, and shifted the brick of clay in front of him like a shield.

The smirk disappeared briefly under a white tee. "Davis I get, she's an ex-con, Dalton's a company man through and through, but you? You're a sniveling little stain on the floor. Webber should have gotten rid of you the second she took command. Yet all these guys, agents I respect, they tolerate you. The director listens to you. Alicia and I, we've worked our asses off for _ten years_ to get here, and a whining baby like you ruins it, just like that. It defies belief."

Bozer didn't realize he was squeezing the modeling compound until he felt it oozing under his fingernails. He knew he was the team's weakest link. They all knew. But Jack, Mac, Riley, even Josh Carter and Alejandro 'Zee' De los Reyes never reminded him of it. Never treated him differently from anyone else. Just like Matty, they expected him to step up.

She'd told him herself, not two weeks ago. _You're not here by accident. Your instincts are solid, and that can't be taught._ _When you have leverage,_ use _it._

And he did have leverage. He had Matty's ear, and Matty's respect. Either one could be used as a carrot or a stick.

Bozer grinned broadly.

"See, now I know you're full of shit," he told the other agent, taking a step forward to lean casually against the bank of lockers. "'Cause if you did read my file, you know exactly why Matty kept me around. I caught a dirty fed moments before he woulda killed the only witness who coulda put him away, an' I didn't need field trainin' - or an Arts degree - to do it." Then he held up the block of clay in his hand. "And this? _This_ is why me an' Zee are besties. That an' my local contacts."

He wasn't about to volunteer that his 'local contact' in that case was the kid who'd broken into Jack Dalton's apartment and temporarily robbed him. Or that the same local contact had helped him track down not a fugitive, but in fact Mac, after he'd broken out of Phoenix medical drugged out of his gourd.

But maybe Tom already knew that, because the ugly look on his face hadn't gone anywhere. "You know why no one wants to work with lucky agents? Because luck is what gets everyone else dead."

"This ain't luck, dawg. I may not be a badass like you or Jack, you got this whole," and he gestured at the well-muscled and irritatingly good-looking agent in front of him,"-Man from U.N.C.L.E thing goin', and I might not like it, but I'll respect it. It works for you." He waved the block of molding compound again. "As long as you respect this. It takes time, it takes skill. And I'm damn good at it." Bozer marveled that his voice could sound so steady while his insides felt like they were quivering.

It was one thing to know that he had leverage. It was another thing entirely to use it.

He continued leaning casually on the lockers as the other agent slowly got to his feet. Even in boxers and an undershirt, he was still a formidable figure, and Bozer tapped every bit of amateur actor training he'd ever taken to simply stand there and let the other agent approach.

"I'll start respecting you when you do something to earn it," Monnegar told him flatly.

It took a few seconds before Bozer realized that he was expected to formulate some kind of response, on top of standing there and looking unintimidated. "I can work with that," was the best he could come up with. A peace offering. Apparently it was not a respect-worthy reply, because the other agent gave him another long look before turning away dismissively, back to his clothes.

"You really can't."

Again, his instinct was to snap at the other man – and then run like hell – but that wasn't going to get him what he wanted, and Wilt glared at the guy's back as he unhurriedly pulled on a collared polo shirt. He'd tried. At least the after-action report would make it sound like the op had gone smoothly. As long as Mac didn't ask – and Riley and Jack kept their mouths shut – he'd be none the wiser.

But it didn't solve the problem of the next time. Boze had been super clear in the debrief that he didn't like Monnegar. He'd rescinded the request to boot Tom in the after-action report he'd just filed, but the other agent didn't know that, and still clearly thought Bozer was torpedoing his shot at being on one of the Phoenix's primary teams.

A stick wasn't going to work, and Bozer really didn't want to roll over and give the guy a carrot, but –

But maybe it wasn't really rolling over.

"Well, Tom, looks like we're gonna find out," Bozer told the agent's back, and was enormously pleased when Monnegar actually paused, with his hand on a pair of jeans. Grinning to himself, Bozer turned smoothly on his heels and marched himself out of the locker room, and as he stepped out into the main hallway and took a deep breath, he finally realized why it had seemed so oppressively quiet in there.

Whoever had been in the shower had finished up not long after he and Tom had started talking. Which meant whoever else was in there with them had heard most of the conversation too.

Good.

The trip back to the lab seemed to take no time at all, and he felt lighter on his feet than he'd been all day as he swept back in and gave Sparky a little gunslinger action greeting. "Double Oh Boze strikes again!" he crowed, when the robot cocked its head curiously.

Maybe Riley was on to something, there, with her comment that Mac wasn't the same guy who'd gotten on a plane bound for Amsterdam. Because he wasn't either. And even though Monnegar wasn't nearly as powerful or important, confronting Tom had been somehow even scarier than the conversation he'd had on the plane with Director Bosch. Bosch could end his career, but Monnegar could end his _life_.

Not that Jack would let that happen.

Probably.

The euphoria of getting out of that argument as the winner – at least for now – lingered for a good twenty minutes, and even having to clean up the rest of the mess left from the op didn't beat it down. But it couldn't last forever, and Bozer was back in the normal zone and tucking a grey hairband into the replenished kit – specifically for Riley – when something occurred to him.

He really wasn't the same guy who'd left for Amsterdam. Those two weeks had forever changed his life. His heart was miraculously still in one piece, but deeply scarred, and those scars were never going to completely go away. Everything that had happened on the plane – hiding Matty's injuries, bullshitting Bosch, learning that Riley was alive, listening on coms when Jack found Mac –

Sitting in a waiting room, then a visitor's lounge, then a hospital room. Signing that piece of paper.

And maybe that wasn't just true for him and Mac. Maybe that was true for Riley, too. She wasn't the same woman who had been kidnapped from that grey hat conference two months ago. She was wiser. More focused. Somehow both more _and_ less guarded.

She'd been kidnapped. Imprisoned. Beaten. She'd faced down the Anti-Ri and actually caught her, only to have the woman almost kill Jack. She'd had to leave Mac on that boat, and face what came after.

In fact . . . the new Riley, the quieter Riley, she was the Riley who'd stepped off that boat. Before any of them really knew what had happened to Mac.

Bozer paused, staring at the wide, soft cloth hairband in his hand. The events that had changed her, maybe some had happened after, but what happened on the boat had certainly left a mark.

Well, of course it had, being kidnapped, held prisoner for days, whaled on by Turks she was probably sure were just gonna kill her-

Hakan had even alluded to it, when he'd been taunting Jack. Something about . . .

Bozer hesitated, then left his kit where it was, and dragged a chair over to his workstation. He pulled up the shared folder they'd been assembling over the past few weeks, research and timelines on the Aydin op, and started looking at the other folders, the ones that he hadn't had a hand in creating. There was a whole directory dedicated just to Academisch Medical Center, and Bozer double-clicked. He had access; the first document his eyes were drawn to was the Withdrawal of Support document, and he stared at the thumbnail for a long time before scanning the rest of the directory.

There were folders for all the agents that had been injured, and Bozer hovered over the folder titled Davis_R, then double-clicked.

-M-

THREE DAYS LATER

He heard a quiet click, then the soft whisper of sneakers, and Mac lay perfectly still, waiting to see if the warm, furry thing on his chest was going to wake.

Nurse Wanda came around the curtain, and her relatively serious expression melted instantly into a fond, sappy smile. "Oh my goodness, handsome, you're startin' to remind me of those charity calendars, the ones with the volunteer firemen and the kittens."

Mac dropped his eyes back to his bare chest, where Metrodora was curled up, this time directly _on_ his bandages, purring in her sleep. She'd grown noticeably just in the few weeks he'd known her, but she still didn't weigh enough to cause him any discomfort, and she'd actually plunked herself down very deliberately on his injury this time, like she was trying to heal it with warm kitten purrs and occasional enthusiastic kneading.

The little Siamese didn't so much as twitch an ear at Wanda's voice, and Mac reached up and gently stroked the fur between her eyes. The very tip of her dusky little tail curled up, but that was about it.

He was pretty sure he was actually going to miss the little furball. Claws and all.

"Oo, I promised myself I wasn't gonna do this," his nurse chided, and he glanced up in time to see her wipe her eye. "We just finished teachin' you manners, and now we gotta let you go."

Mac gave her an easy grin, then made a rolling gesture with his left hand. "I'll miss you too."

Her eyes widened a little, and a surprised little smile spread across her face. "Is that what you were programmin' it to say earlier?"

He nodded, returning his attention to Dora, and under his slightly more forceful petting, she uncurled and languidly stretched, and the frequency and volume of her purring increased. He watched as she splayed her tiny pink toes towards his face, flexing her claws in and out before she withdrew back into a compact loaf of sleeping kitten.

Clearly she intended to stay until she was done with her nap, and she wasn't about to let silly humans dictate when that would be.

The nurse cooed over them for a few minutes, also stroking the kitten, and they eventually got her to open her eyes and give them a reproachful look, followed by a ridiculously large yawn. Once her blue eyes were open, however, she was a little more engaged with the world, and Wanda carefully scooped her up.

"It's time to say goodbye to your very first patient," she told the kitten seriously, then rotated her so she was looking at him, hovering a few inches above his chest.

Metrodora blinked her round little kitten eyes at him, but otherwise didn't respond.

"You're a Siamese," Wanda prodded the kitten. "You talk to everyone. All the time. It's what you do."

The kitten hung in Wanda's hands without struggling, glancing around the room. Eventually she caught sight of her own tail twitching beneath Wanda's hands, and started tracking it with her darkening ears.

Mac opened his mouth. "Watch her," he breathed, and Wanda gave him a knowing nod.

"Oh, I know what those claws can do. Alright, Dora, if you're not gonna say goodbye, time to go back to the carrier."

It wasn't until she tucked the kitten against her own chest that Metrodora mewed, and Mac reached over and adjusted the back of his bed to sit himself up as his two nurses – one _Felis catus_ , one _Homo sapiens_ – withdrew to the foot of his bed, where the kitten's cloth chariot awaited.

"She really don't talk much when she's in here, does she," Wanda noted aloud as the kitten agreeably entered her carrier and was zipped up. "I guess it's 'cause you don't make all that much noise yourself, handsome."

There was probably some truth to that. It seemed like he remembered seeing a Youtube video of a deaf man's cat using sign language to beg for treats instead of meowing. Bozer would remember –

MacGyver's eyes fell on the little white box, perched innocently on its homemade melamine shelf, virtually unnoticed by Nurse Wanda as she lifted the carrier over it. The face of it was perfectly normal, its little green LED indicating power, capturing every movement of his orange gloves.

The nurse may not have noticed the box, but she definitely noticed it now had her patient's attention. "Don't you worry, handsome. That's the last thing we'll unplug before we send you on your way. You get to keep your voice until then."

He nodded to show that he understood, watching the blank white part where a red LED would sometimes blink.

It didn't.

"And speaking of, you were supposed to be sleeping," she chided him gently, setting the cloth carrier on her cart. "You hopin' skipping out on your nap would help you sleep on the plane?"

He shrugged, and she shook her head fondly and trundled her cart out the door.

They'd made no attempt to keep his transfer a secret from him. Even if Jack hadn't warned him, he'd figured it was only a matter of time once he'd participated in a near jail-break. The eval team had come and gone days ago; frankly he was a little surprised this hadn't happened yesterday, and he figured he had Dr. Parsons to thank for that. Or maybe Matty.

Or maybe both.

Once the nurse was gone, he resumed watching his little white box do nothing at all.

Jack had warned him about that too.

Morse code was more useful than no signal at all, but it was a little cumbersome for long messages. He was long used to Jack's shorthand, and the evening after he'd electrocuted his fellow patient and Kristy, the box had lit up.

 **HEY MAC**

He'd twitched a hand to signal that he was listening. Or in this case, watching.

 **SECRET SVC INCOMING ETA 12 HRS**

It communicated a great deal in only a few words. Secret Service indicated a national security matter. It also explained a hell of a lot. Why the doors had potentially fatal anti-tamper mechanisms. Why videochat was disallowed. Why his team had visited him so few times, and had never called. The sheer complexity of the medical technology around him. Why he seemed to have windows when he'd now seen enough of the facility to know he was in a fully interior room.

The facility he was in – the patients he spent art therapy with – were all government assets, all with top secret clearance or higher.

Mac indicated that he understood.

 **EXPECT TRANSFER**

Meaning once the Secret Service were done with him – probably trying to determine if he was competent to testify about Aydin – they were going to move him to accommodations more suited for said testimony.

That could either be very good – like back to California, and the Phoenix – or very bad. Very, very bad.

Mac repeated the gesture. _I understand._

There was a brief pause before the LED started up once more.

 **RADIO SILENCE STILL WATCHING SECRET SQRL**

That had been a little harder to decipher. He'd known as soon as he'd received the first messages that Riley hadn't exactly had permission to allow two way communication between him and the Phoenix. It was already secret. Knowing what he knew now, that this facility was aligned to the Secret Service, the risk his team had taken to speak with him was enormous. But he didn't understand why that risk had changed. It had always been a very bad idea.

One he was very grateful for, but a bad idea nonetheless. Radio silent meant there would be no more signals. Maybe the team was concerned the new evaluators would take away the box, or have it re-inspected. Mac didn't like it, but he signed his understanding.

 **OVERWATCH IN POSITION**

Mac knew he'd smiled, faintly, and he dropped all pretenses and gave Jack the signal he always used to use, back in the desert, when they both knew that he was about to either save the day, or blow himself up.

 _Thanks for everything._

The LED hadn't blinked since. And Jack – or more likely Riley – had been right. When the evaluators had come in, they'd checked everything. Including the little white box, its melamine shelf, even the clamps. In fact, they'd had a pretty hard time with that, the entire rig had been gone for hours before Nurse Alec, of all people, had reappeared with it and re-clamped it to the frame of the bed. As far as Mac knew, no changes had been made to the device. It worked exactly as it had when Riley and Bozer dropped it off.

It simply didn't blink at him anymore.

But Jack's parting words – Overwatch in position – meant a lot. It meant Jack was glued to his ass, knew exactly where he was, was watching for friendlies and for targets. There was probably nothing he could do about either, but at least the Phoenix still had an eye on him, and that was more comforting than he expected it to be.

No one had said anything to him, not even the evaluation team. No one had rattled off any charges, no one had actually placed him under arrest. It was possible Matty had tried to spin the facts, make it sound like a legitimate op. But he knew he couldn't count on that.

He'd released Batuhan Aydin back into the world, and people had died. Maybe a lot. He remembered Jack and Bozer telling him everyone was safe, that the op was done, but he had no idea if that extended to the passengers and crew on that cruise ship, or just their Phoenix colleagues. Since he was still alive, it stood to reason that first responders had gotten to the ship pretty quickly, so there was at least hope that some of the crew had avoided drowning.

But he had no idea what the final death toll was, whether Aydin was back in custody, really any of the consequences of his actions. Today he was going to find out if he was going to be taken to a court to testify, or taken to a prison.

Nurse Wanda reappeared fairly quickly, sans kitten carrier, and came up on his left, checking his vitals. He intentionally took a deep breath, figuring that would be the first thing she went after him for, and though he didn't get her eyes, she rewarded him by patting his shoulder.

"Your BP is up. Nerves?" she asked sympathetically.

He shrugged, with her hand still on his shoulder.

"You want me to give you something to take the edge off – hey, how about you let me finish a sentence before you have that thing cut me off?" she demanded, even as the computer had already finished trying to interrupt her with a 'no.'

Mac gave her a sheepish smile, then watched her expectantly to see if she was going to say anything else. Wanda gave him a dirty look.

"I know you're used to these nice tile floors, but trust me. I commute in every day. Potholes are a thing, and that ambulance ride isn't gonna be all smooth cruisin'." She patted his shoulder again, more firmly for emphasis, and he was a little surprised when he actually felt it in his lung.

She might have a point. He didn't want to be sedated for the trip, but if he looked like he was in too much pain, whoever was transporting him might very well do it anyway.

In fact, he actually had no guarantee that he _wasn't_ going to be straight up sedated.

So he asked. "Sedation question mark."

Wanda glanced up at the screen, where it was actually displayed in the form of a question. "Not right now. Not unless you want me to, and – yeah, I got that," she added drily as he shook his head. "For the plane ride, they'll probably give you something. I really don't know. And I'm more worried about right now," she added, giving him a little squeeze. "You're supposed to be relaxing."

Mac was aware. Wanda hadn't made any effort to hide that he was being transferred from the facility today. All of his routines had been broken. His physical therapy this morning had been light, no water, really just full body stretching to get him ready to travel comfortably. After that, he'd had a bath in an actual bathroom, which had still required assistance but was a significant improvement from a sponge bath, and Nurse Wanda had taken a lot of time with him, and used a little aromatherapy before putting him back in his bed with Metrodora.

He knew it was all an attempt to relax him, to keep him calm, but sleep hadn't come. He'd realized that this was the very last time he was going to get to spend with Metrodora, and had ended up playing with her and then simply watching her sleep, visualizing the inside of a feline voice box, trying to determine how she was able to purr and sleep simultaneously.

Now that there was a credible threat of sedation for the flight, he didn't regret that decision one bit.

"Is there anything I can get you?"

He thought about it, then shook his head. Honestly, he wanted to simply get on with it. Go wherever he was going and get there, so that he could figure out what was going to happen next.

"Well then, how about we get you dressed?"

Dressed, as it turned out, actually meant dressed, and the nurse made a big production of bringing over a plain white t-shirt and hospital-scrub-blue sweatpants. It was a hell of a lot better than a hospital gown, and Mac whole-heartedly approved.

"Figured that would brighten you up," she told him with a wink. "Can't have you catching cold on the plane."

Mac remained still as the nurse disconnected the IV in the crook of his elbow – no more central line, that had come out a couple days ago – and his catheter. The line for that, she waved at him. "This is staying in for convenience – don't want you havin' to deal with it on the plane. But I expect it'll come out when you get where you're going."

She didn't tell him where that was going to be, and he wondered if she even knew. Still, it made sense, and even commando with a catheter in, it was awesome to actually be wearing a pair of pants again. The dinky hospital socks, with the treads on seemingly every surface, however, remained.

He wiggled his toes at the nurse, who shook her head fondly as she tossed his sheet back over him. Then she approached the head of the bed, on his left, and ran a hand through his only slightly damp hair.

"Well, that's about all the prep until your escort gets here," she admitted, playing with his hair another moment. Searching it for any remaining adhesive, he realized. His scalp monitors were gone, as were his chest and heart monitors and his O2 line. He almost looked like a normal hospital patient. Just a standard IV and cath.

Mac glanced out the windows, which showed a bright sunny day, and then he used his left hand to gesture. "Nice outside question mark."

Wanda followed his gaze. "Yeah, shapin' up to be gorgeous," she told him, and then turned away and headed back for her cart. "Dr. Parsons will be by in a few minutes to give you your discharge instructions, and then you'll be off," she continued, without making eye contact, and Mac smiled at her back as she not so subtly tried to find something to do.

He took pity on the nurse, and launched one of his games.

By the time the door clicked open again, everyone was dry-eyed and Mac was working towards an all-time high score for Space Invaders. Based on the sound, which was whisper quiet, he assumed it was Nurse Alec – or even better, Nurse Kristy. He hadn't seen her since he'd had to electrocute her, and he'd written her a custom farewell message in his app.

To say that he was sorry, and that he hoped she was going to be all right.

But it wasn't Kristy, and it wasn't Alec. Simone Parsons came around the curtain, arching an eyebrow when she saw what they were up to. He took his cue from Wanda, who didn't look even remotely guilty to be caught sitting in a patient room watching a game, and the doctor gave him a once-over before she simply dragged over a stool and took a seat on his right. He hastily exited the game.

"Mr. MacGyver," she began, glancing at her tablet. "By now you are aware that you're being transferred to a different facility for continuation of care."

Continuation of care could mean a lot of things, so it didn't tell him much, but he nodded at the doctor.

"I'm sending along a copy of your discharge instructions, but I'm going over them with you as well so you know what to expect," she continued, as if all of her patients were discharged in this fashion. Mac realized he probably wasn't far off the mark. If the patients he interacted with in art therapy were a normalized sample, very few of her patients ever actually went 'home.' He wasn't sure Mannuel ever would. They went to other care facilities – or, like him, maybe their final destination hadn't been decided yet.

And honestly, even if Matty Webber had somehow worked her magic, he should be heading straight to a physical rehab facility. He still couldn't actually stand without mechanical assistance, there was no way he'd be sent home until he'd had another few weeks of therapy himself.

So maybe this was a positive change.

Transferring him right after he told her he wasn't ready to be transferred.

She looked back up from her tablet, and he quickly schooled his features, hoping the doubt hadn't shown on his face. If she noticed it, she didn't say anything about it.

"I know it's not your favorite pastime, but I've advised that the sleep studies continue. We need to knock that looping trauma you're experiencing loose, and I'm still convinced it's the best therapy."

Since he rarely remembered his dreams during his enforced REM cycles, it wasn't exactly torture, but a three hour nap in the middle of the day, every day, would probably not go over well with a debrief panel.

"You're finally making decent headway with the remnants of the shock. As long as you keep your stress levels to a minimum, you should continue to improve at your current rate and I expect you walking unaided in a matter of weeks."

So she agreed with his own estimate, that was at least something. Though he could think of several uses for crutches in a prison that had nothing to do with walking -

"At some point, your new physician will start addressing your vocal recovery. It's vital that you don't push that, and don't attempt to speak outside of vocal therapy."

Mac blinked, and then he gave the doctor a look that he hoped conveyed exactly how likely he thought that was to happen.

He got the same droll look in return. "I understand that several individuals are eager to speak with you - at length. So it's safe to say the three things I've just prescribed are unlikely to routinely occur." She sighed, then set the tablet on his bed.

"So here are the highlights. I don't want you speaking at all. Literally just breathe the words over your lips and tongue like you do here. If they can't hear you, that's their problem, not yours." She gave him an expectant look, and he nodded.

"You've been doing very well here since we've taken you off the seizure medication. However, the more worked up you get, and the more sensation you regain, there's a chance that you may have one or two more." He sharpened his look a little, and she offered him a shrug. "It happens to the best of us, and it might happen to you. The moment you feel one of those coming on, you _call_ it. I don't care if you cut the Pope off mid-word. You'll be taken to a quiet room to reduce external stimulation. But that's not going to do your brain any good if you're freaking out. So don't freak out. You know your mindfulness techniques. Use them. If you can call it soon enough, and give yourself a good hour _after_ symptoms are totally gone, you may be able to prevent it."

He was hoping that the seizures weren't going to be permanent, and he definitely didn't want to have one in front of a panel that might be tasked with deciding whether or not he should remain an agent – or even a free man. It was a sobering thought, and he tried to table it as Dr. Parsons' green-gold eyes flicked up to the panel above his head.

"You're sure doing a bang-up job right now, and I'm not even throwing you hardballs," she remarked lightly, and dropped her eyes back to his. Mac intentionally took a deep, slow breath, and the doctor gave him an encouraging nod.

"That's the spirit." She glanced at the table that typically hovered over his bed, that had been pushed aside for his bath, and then stood and padded over to it. She plucked up his hacky sack, and a slip of folded paper.

"Your personal effects have been packed, except for these." She examined each object carefully, then came to sit beside him again, studying him with the same intensity. "Do you want to keep them?"

His binky and his fear.

It was a test, he was certain. His very last one, at least the last one she could administer. But he wasn't quite sure what she was testing. It was typically more than one thing at a time, to prevent him from being fully able to 'guess' the 'right' answer.

The hacky sack was a comfort item. Initially the thing he used to prove to himself that Jack and Bozer had really been there. Then as an old-fashioned fidget spinner, something to occupy unending blocks of time. Now it was legitimately a physical therapy object, something he used to work on his dexterity and coordination.

But he didn't need it. He knew who he was and where he was. His stints of boredom were likely to be few and far between for a while, and hopefully when everything was said and done, he would be in good enough physical shape to make his own PT devices.

There was definitely going to be a few weeks between fidgeting, and kicking around a hacky sack the way it was meant to be used.

The slip of paper was in itself even less useful. He knew what was written on it, and he was unlikely to forget. He could practically hear Samantha Cage's accented voice in his head, telling him that revealing a fear was a liability for a trained interrogator – or an agent. If he wasn't going to a physical therapy facility in California, if he was headed to a black site instead, that piece of paper would mean psychological war on a level he didn't want to contemplate.

Then again, those people would have his file. It wouldn't take them long to figure it out on their own, the way Dr. Parsons had done.

That slip of paper wasn't for her. She hadn't even needed to read it. She'd figured out weeks ago what it was that was scaring him. All that piece of paper was for was making him realize that it was a very simple fear. Not a complex problem for him to solve.

There was nothing _to_ solve. That _was_ the problem.

He didn't need either object. Keeping either was admitting that they comforted him in some way. And that he wanted comfort. Whether he deserved it –

Mac blinked, and then examined that thought further. Deserved . . .

That was what she was testing. Whether he was going to deny them because he thought he didn't deserve them. Put another way, self-punishment.

Or in her terms, stressing himself out. Assigning judgement and value to things, that a comfort item was 'bad' or 'good,' instead of just being.

Mac held out his hand.

Whether he passed or failed her test, the doctor handed him the hacky sack, which he dropped into his lap, and then the slip of paper, that had never left his patient table. "You have a handy little pocket on your tee shirt," she noted casually. "And since they're probably not going to give you a pen . . ."

He smirked a little, then carefully tucked the folded paper into the little pocket. It was flat enough that you couldn't even see it. Maybe his guards would overlook it.

If not he could always eat it. Very _Count of Monte Cristo_.

"Do you have any questions for me?"

His eyes strayed to the television that always displayed his word app, and he thought about asking to see Kristy. The more he thought about it, she was either on leave recovering herself, or being intentionally kept away from him, and since it was safe to say, from her perspective at least, the event had been traumatic, maybe expressing his guilt to her wasn't in her best interest.

In which case, there was only one thing left to say.

He raised his left hand, palm towards her, and gave a little wave.

"Thank you. For everything."

The computer didn't allow him the inflection those words deserved; the best he could do was put that period in the middle to make the automated voice add some separation. The doctor offered him a slow smile.

"You're welcome. For everything," she added, teasing but not mocking. "Tell you what, MacGyver. If you really want to thank me, send me a card in six months."

He started to agree, but then stopped himself. He knew her name, or at least one of her cover identities, and he knew she worked in a secret government asset rehabilitation facility in Grand Junction. He had no idea what the address was, and even if he did, he was pretty sure he wasn't allowed to mail things to people working there.

Also, it was pretty hard to mail letters from a black site.

Her smile broadened at his confusion. "You're a smart man. I'm sure you'll figure something out."

He returned her smile with one of his own, and pointed with his left hand.

"Challenge accepted."

"And on that note, I'll need to take those." Dr. Parsons indicated the orange gloves, and Mac stared at them for a long second, then offered his hands. Wanda came up to take the other, her eyes bright but dry, and all too soon the gloves were placed on the little white box. He stared at the faceplate until the green power LED faded, and then Wanda started wrapping up cords and tucking them into a nondescript black backpack.

A sudden wave of loneliness took him by surprise. It was silly, of course; his doctor and nurse were still in the room, but Jack's eyes and ears were gone. His voice, that Bozer and Riley had given him, was gone.

Whatever happened next, he was on his own.

"Well, handsome, looks like that's about it," Wanda told him, ostensibly surveying the room again. When she had no further excuses, she fixed her boss with a look, then sighed. "I can't. You win."

"I know," the doctor said airly, and crossed to the back of the room. Wanda turned to Mac and did a little prissy head-shake, and he grinned for her benefit. But he was well aware Dr. Parsons was digging in the medication drawer, and she came up with a syringe.

"When your escort arrives, we'll transfer you to a gurney, and from there to an ambulance. The ambulance will take you to the airstrip, where you'll board a medical plane. I expect they'll give you a light sedative to make the trip more comfortable." She indicated the drugs in her hand. "But based on your current vitals, I really think a little something right now would help."

She didn't immediately administer it, though. She waited for his consent.

He wondered if the medical staff on that flight were going to give him the same respect, even though he sort of already knew the answer.

Mac sighed, then nodded. She was right. All he was doing was working himself up, and there really was nothing he could do now but wait and see what happened. He had no backup and no control, but he also trusted that she was still focused solely on what was best for him. He barely even felt the drugs hit his system, there was no insistent tug of sleep, and he nodded to her again as she watched for his reaction.

She patted his arm. "We've come a long way, haven't we."

Mac nodded, not quite sure why he had to swallow a little lump out of his throat. Dr. Parsons flashed him a quick smile that seemed a little different, somehow, a little too sharp and too brief, and then she swept back his curtain, making room for the gurney they would bring to the side of his bed, and transfer him to that waiting ambulance.

As she headed to the exit, he finally saw why he couldn't hear her footsteps. She was wearing large slippers, he couldn't tell what animal they were but they looked well-worn, and as Nurse Wanda came around to take the doctor's place, she followed his gaze and smiled.

"She had to wear her comfy shoes today," the nurse stage-whispered. "Sometimes goodbyes are hard."

If Parsons heard her, she didn't respond. She simply badged out and walked away.

Mac closed his eyes as he felt the relaxant really take hold, and Wanda kept a hand on his shoulder as she watched his stats. When they got back down to whatever target he'd exceeded, she patted him.

"There you go, handsome. Just chill, you got a few more minutes still."

He nodded minutely, acknowledging that he was still awake, and no sooner than he'd done it, the door clicked, and he opened his eyes to see an unfamiliar nurse pushing it open, towing a narrow gurney. He was followed by a taller man in a suit, who stood in the open doorway, eyes inspecting every corner of the room.

Securing it.

It was time to go.

Wanda helped the other nurse line the gurney up, and despite being specifically instructed not to, Mac still helped them swing his hips from one bed to the next. He was wrapped up in a slightly heavier blanket than his normal one, and then Wanda darted back into the sheets and came up with his hacky sack, which she pressed into his hands, even as the other nurse secured straps around Mac's legs and waist. It wasn't done tightly, and it was just regular Velcro, which made him feel about six percent more at ease.

The lack of handcuffs also helped.

Once they had him safely tucked in, Wanda gave him a tremulous smile. "You take care, handsome, you hear me?"

He caught her hand as she turned to busy herself with the sheets on his bed, and shook it properly. "Thank you," he mouthed, and then he let her go. She smiled wider, then laughed a little and wiped her eyes.

"You just cost me twenty bucks, you know," she told him, and then the other nurse started towing Mac backwards. He saw Wanda pause by the bed, and then the agent that had been holding it open let the door swing closed, and she was gone. The agent gave him a once-over, just like any agent securing an asset for transport, and gave the medic at Mac's head a short nod. The gurney started backwards down the hallway, and the second agent, the part of Mac's escort that had been securing the hallway, came into view.

Another powerfully built man in a nondescript black suit, with short-cropped hair, clearly ex-military as well. But when this one met his eyes, he gave him a shit-eating grin.

"Hey bud," Jack greeted him.

Mac stared at his partner in total shock, even as Jack trailed the rapidly moving gurney. The other half of Mac's escort glanced between the two of them, clearly confused, and Jack's grin grew wider.

"Close that mouth, there, hoss. Somethin's liable to fly in."

Mac obediently closed his mouth, his brow furrowed. If the Phoenix was picking him up, then why . . .?

Jack simply lifted a finger to his lips, and Mac tried hard to play it off, letting his head rest against the thin pillow on the gurney as his dizzying trip backwards continued. They passed through several double doors before a wave of warm air hit him and Mac found himself being towed out onto a vast loading dock. A nondescript, normal-looking ambulance was parked right there, and after some jostling he felt the gurney wheels snap into place.

It wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't painful either, and Mac watched the medic hook up a fresh bag of saline to his IV port. Jack and the other agent spoke to one another, and then the other guy frowned, but headed towards the front of the ambulance, and Jack hopped in the back.

The sling was gone; Jack was using his right arm like normal. His partner pulled the back doors closed and slid into the suicide seat as the medic took the closer seat and strapped himself in. Then a heart and blood ox meter was slipped onto his finger, and the steady beep of Mac's heart filled up the back as the ambulance pulled away from the dock.

Mac glanced between the medic and Jack. He didn't recognize the medic either, neither he nor the second agent were Phoenix employees he knew. If this was a jailbreak –

Jack gave him a casual wave. "Relax and enjoy the ride," he called out, then glanced out the back window. His posture was relaxed, no indication that anything was about to happen.

And nothing did. The ambulance ride took about twenty minutes, and then he felt the pavement change a little, and the view out the back windows clearly showed him an airport terminal. They drove along the tarmac a short distance, then slowly pulled around, and Jack shot him another reassuring grin before throwing open the back doors. Even over the heart monitor, Mac could hear the low-level whine of jet engines in idle.

His gurney was unloaded by the medic, and Mac craned his neck and caught sight of a modestly sized medical transport plane. There were two people waiting on the ramp, clearly clinicians, and after a clipboard was exchanged, Mac was towed up and locked into one of the four gurney bays. The medic from the ambulance gave them all a two fingered salute and withdrew back down the ramp, and Jack and the other agent boarded.

So he was definitely flying _somewhere_.

The new medics attached yet another bag of saline to him, as well as something clear in a much smaller bag – the sedatives Parsons had warned him about.

"I'm Mabel. Yes really," the woman closest to him said, as she casually slipped a gloved hand under his blanket and down his sweatpants and fished out the capped end of his catheter. "Your record says you've got a case of vocal cord paralysis, so don't even try to whisper, I can read lips. Do you understand?"

Mac nodded.

"If you need anything, press this button, okay?" Once the catheter was connected to a bag, she peeled off her latex glove and then pressed a small buzzer-like cylinder into his hand. Mac looked over it, then shifted it in his grip until his thumb was over the large red button on the end. Mabel gave him an approving look.

"After takeoff, I'm going to come back and get your vitals. We're giving you something to make you comfortable, but if there's pain, you let me know. The flight's going to be a few hours, so just try to relax."

Mac nodded again, and the nurse went to join her colleague, who was strapping himself into one of the seats. Across the fuselage, Jack and the other agent were doing the same.

Jack caught his eye and winked, and Mac stared at him a second, then tried to follow Mabel's direction, and relax. Between whatever Parsons had given him earlier and whatever they were giving him now, that was much easier than he'd expected, and Mac found that he honestly couldn't even be bothered to open his eyes as the plane taxied, turned ninety degrees, apparently got permission for takeoff, and did exactly that. He drowsed until someone touched him, and opened his eyes to see the other medic taking his blood pressure.

He never really fell asleep, which was good, because he wasn't sure what his medical record said about the way he woke up. But he definitely lost time here and there, and he only opened his eyes when someone turned his left hand over.

"Y'still have this?" Jack was looking at his hand in surprise.

Right. The hacky sack.

Mac managed a drunken nod, and his partner re-closed his lax fingers around it.

"Cool. Guess we can play sometime then."

It seemed to him that they had played hacky sack at least once on base, but he really didn't care enough to try to remember.

"You okay there, chief?"

Yes. He was okay. He was on a plane, flying somewhere within the continental United States, and Jack was on the plane with him. He no longer gave a rat's ass where they landed.

Everything was going to be fine.

Oddly, his partner smiled, as if he'd said it all out loud. Which he hadn't . . . he couldn't even feel his lips. And had no voice.

"Well, we're about halfway there, so you just lay back and enjoy the ride."

No problem.

Mac drifted in and out a few more times before he decided that he probably actually did give a rat's ass where they were going to land. Jack hadn't said home. Just that they were halfway there. Jack knew where they were landing, but that didn't mean it wasn't going to be a black site.

And why were rat asses a commodity?

But there was something he wanted Jack to have. If it was a black site, and they took away his stuff, he didn't want them to have his stuff. He wanted Jack to have his stuff.

Jack would keep it safe for him.

So Mac pried open his eyes, and let his head loll around until he found someone in a black suit.

Not Jack.

He was pretty sure the disappointment showed on his face, because that guy stared at him for a while, then frowned, and got up and walked away. The two medics were busy writing things down, they didn't look at him, and Mac wasn't sure what he wanted was truly big red button worthy, so he sighed, and tried to remember what he was doing.

Stuff. Jack. Right.

"Hey bud," a voice floated in, and Mac opened his eyes to find his partner, sitting beside him again.

Had he left?

Stuff. _Right._

Mac clumsily dragged his heavy left hand over his body, towards his partner, and Jack intercepted it. "Yeah, I saw it earlier. Pretty cool she let you keep it."

Keep it. Nope. Opposite of keep. He accidentally dropped it, but Jack twitched, and he figured the other man had caught it.

"They really got you hopped up on the good stuff, huh."

Mac decided he probably ought to be a little alarmed about that, but he just wasn't. Whatever happened was fine. He offered his partner a faint smile and went back to sleep.

Only he couldn't because someone was talking to him. "Bud, you want me to hold onto this for you?"

Hold onto . . . yes.

He nodded sleepily, then silently groaned as he remembered, and dragged his hand up to his shirt pocket. His other stuff. It would be safe with Jack.

"Whatcha got there?" His hand was shifted over, and that was fine. He opened his eyes just enough to confirm that Jack had found the piece of paper, still folded, and was staring at it with a weird expression on his face. His brown eyes cut back to Mac's.

"Is this what I think it is?"

There was no telling what a Jack Dalton might think it was, and shrugging was going to be way hard, so Mac just stared at him.

Jack nodded to himself, then casually dropped it in his own front suit pocket. "I'm just gonna hold onto this for you too. How's that sound?"

Awesome.

-M-

Third time's the charm, I see. Couldn't quite keep up the posting pace. Ah well. =) But you get a nice long chapter, and a lot going on here, including a little time jump.

Matty becomes aware of what happened at St. Mary-Dismas, and that her ability to protect Mac is coming to an end. Bozer and Riley have it out about the new agents, and Riley gives Bozer a lot to think about – so much, in fact, that he starts putting together what it is she won't talk about. Mac is notified that his time in the hospital is coming to an end, and now that he's finally made peace with being there in the first place, he's not sure he's ready to leave. He gets a very nice surprise on his way out the door.

The first half of this chapter was beta'd, but the last half was not because I didn't get it to her by deadline. Luckily drugged Mac is pretty easy to write.


	37. Chapter 37

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

-M-

 **ONE WEEK LATER**

Matilda Webber was not one to half-ass spycraft.

There were anti-surveillance protocols for a reason. She'd probably written almost half of the ones in use all around the world that very second, and she'd written them after she'd tried them herself, and she'd tried them after the ones she'd been taught had failed her.

Hard lessons leading to permanent change. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . .

So no matter how heavy her burden was, how tired she was in body and soul, no matter if she was broken, bleeding, poisoned, gassed – she kept those protocols in the forefront of her mind, because any good operative knew you struck when the target was weakest.

Just like they'd tried.

Matty closed the front door behind her, breathing in the familiar scent of her home, still marred just a bit by fresh plaster and paint. Just like she had that night, she tucked her house keys back in her pocketbook, though this time there was no need to hit the silent alarm. There were no intruders. No one had taken out cellular service in order to bypass her home security and murder her.

And just like she'd done that night, she palmed her Beretta Nano and headed through the house, turning on very few lights on her way upstairs to her bedroom.

Just like that night, she didn't encounter a soul, didn't hear a single sound out of place. She closed her bedroom door behind herself, tossed her pocketbook – Nano _inside_ this time – onto the bed, and flipped on the light to the master bathroom.

Just like that night, she turned on all the bathroom lights, and then came back to her walk-in closet, and stared at the neat row of hanging jackets, behind which her secret passage still remained.

Not that she could ever use it again. Now it was merely a trap, a cage for any intelligence agent who managed to access the beyond top secret report that was being assembled, piece by painstaking piece, by the Five Eyes.

And the even more confidential one, that was known only to the heads of Homeland, the Secret Service, the CIA, and Phoenix.

Based on the slight chalky tang of plaster dust still hanging in the air, the construction group had gotten quite a bit done today. She knew if she looked under the bed she'd find absolutely nothing, not so much as a seam in the oriental rug, but if she were to roll under it and press the button, a Matilda Webber-sized trap door would fall out from beneath her, and she'd land on a dustless nylon net, suspended only a few inches from the first floor dining room ceiling. Then the door would pop soundlessly back into place, and this time her escape would lead her to garage side of the house, to the area just behind the only landscaping that was even remotely near the bricks of the house, because there were no windows or doorway entry points there.

The least accessible part of the house, and the least desirable from a tactical standpoint, had now become her best escape route. And her garage had just become eleven inches shorter.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Matty took a deep, slow breath, still staring at the neat row of suit jackets, and then peeled off the one she was wearing, peeling off the day with it. She hung it back up in its place, with the hanger turned so she knew she'd worn it once already since its last dry cleaning, and her blouse, slacks, bra, panties, and pumps were discarded and punted to the appropriate laundry basket and corner, respectively.

She wasn't usually a fan of showers this late at night, but she knew she didn't have time for it tomorrow morning, and rather than have to deal with her hair, she tied it on top of her head and walked into her cavernous shower, large enough for her and ten of her closest friends.

Honestly, she just liked the space. And the surround jets. Even in California, ever conscious of water resources. Her shower water drained into the grey water tank, which was regularly tested for skin-permeable poisons and further tested on the landscaping.

Fool me once, shame on you.

She'd had to tone down the water pressure to something tolerable to the still-healing wounds on her back, but she loved the massage-like pounding on the back of her neck, and Matty had to angle it carefully to avoid the spray getting her hair too wet. All her sutures were out; like Jack, another few weeks and they'd be just a few more angry scars. Her last MRI had looked good, and her physician – as well as the Drs. Talbot – weren't exactly thrilled with her progress, but they were now completely certain there would be no fusing issues.

Shower complete, Matty stepped out, wrapped herself in a towel, and padded back through the master bathroom to the bedroom, where her pocketbook containing both her tablet and her cellphone waited. The towel was discarded for a robe, and then Matty took the three steps up into her bed, let down her hair, and logged back in.

No scotch tonight. She needed to bring her best self in tomorrow. Just as she'd done today.

In the time since Matty had left the office, Riley had finally turned around her preliminary algorithm results, and Matty grabbed the sparkling water waiting for her on her nightstand, cracking the glass bottle's seal and listening for the pop as pressure released. She'd gotten into the habit of drinking it at night because the pressurization made it harder to tamper with.

Fool me once, shame on you.

The results were promising. Riley's algorithm had successfully detected the events that might have led Matty to cancel Miss Davis' request to hit that grey hat conference. There'd been quiet, well disguised accesses to Riley's information. Simple, normal-seeming credit requests, the purchase of utility customer data for Riley's neighborhood by a fake marketing company. All the activity that Riley had managed to dig up, digital fingerprints left by Hatice Iris. Starting months before Riley was kidnapped.

Starting in the same timeframe as Batuhan Aydin's preliminary trial date was set. Weeks before it was made public.

The algorithm was designed to sift through enormous data sets and make connections between people based on planned deviations from schedule, important appointments with other people based on their role, criminal history, and social connections, events being planned and attended, weather forecasts, and dozens of other criteria to try to predict the best times for an adversary to target agents the way Riley and Mac were targeted.

You struck when your target was weakest. And Riley had been the most exposed at that grey hat convention. More exposed than she'd been during the entire time Iris had been surveilling her. Isolated, in unfamiliar territory, totally focused on another threat entirely.

The test data had also picked up a few of the clues of Matty's surveillance, and she tabbed to the second page, noting that several of those detected events lined up with MacGyver's. She was his boss and technically the team's handler, so when they were spun up for ops, their schedules frequently coincided. Jill's investigations had already picked up when the _Bordo Berelilers_ had entered the country – through Mexico – but Riley's algorithm indicated that Kadir Hakan himself had been there, and left the country the same morning Mac did.

It also picked up that a cellular tower near Mac's house had communicated with his cellphone at exactly twice the normal interval, which Jill had also found after the fact, and a purchase made for radio equipment from a specialty store just south of Hollywood from a second phone connected to that same cell tower, being communicated with at that same double interval. They'd never found the phone – it was probably a burner – and Riley was trying to dig up other communications it might have sent.

All in all, it found lots of tiny data points that, in hindsight, indicated the scale and complexity of the operation that targeted the three of them, and most of the data points in themselves had not been significant enough to warrant triggering any alarms. It was the combination and quantity plus the correlation that made them actionable.

If Riley's algorithm went live, they could monitor every Phoenix employee, and the added intelligence could mean the difference between a successful kidnapping, or catching a terrorist well before they ever set their plan in motion.

Matty tabbed over to her operation notes, and copied the pertinent ones from Riley's algorithm into the timeline. Jack had physically detected the _Bordo Bereliler's_ presence at Mac's house the night before they'd revealed themselves to him, and investigated without finding anything. He'd even been harboring the suspicion that it had been Murdoc skulking around. That hunch, that Jack had shrugged off, coincided with the burner phone's location, and Matty added the data point.

They were all very, very lucky that Jack hadn't found the man there that night. He hadn't been prepared for that kind of conflict, and he very likely would have been killed. At that point Hakan would have cut his losses, killed as many Phoenix operatives as he could – including Mac, Bozer, Riley, and her – and fallen back to Amsterdam to break Aydin loose the old fashioned way. Dozens more would have died. Maybe hundreds, depending on variables outside of even Riley's predictive analytics.

The longer she studied Hakan's operation, the more things fell into place. Like how Hatice Iris had been recruited – and why she specifically targeted Riley. Why it was so important to Kadir Hakan to give Aydin such a gift, not only releasing him, but handing him the enemies that had put him there. Those data points, too, could become part of Riley's algorithm. Assigning motives to the criminal information.

The lessons learned from Hakan's attack would be far reaching. New protocols would be written. Relationships would be managed differently.

Fool me once, shame on you.

This was her comfort zone. The place she always retreated after mission failure. Analysis. In a way, she was doing exactly what she'd mentored Riley to avoid. Hiding in her work. Hiding in the work she knew she did better than anyone else. Reading people, reading situations, studying their decisions, extrapolating motives. She was glad she'd been given that task by Oversight, not only because she was one of the best in the intelligence community at it, but because it enabled her to have influence over the proceedings.

Without the timeline glowing at her from the tablet's screen, she would never have been privy to MacGyver's debrief.

Of course she wasn't in the room. She was one of an audience of dozens, watching on a screen several floors away. As a victim of the attack and also as someone under investigation, her presence in the room with Mac could influence his behavior. And so he was surrounded by strangers. Mostly State Department and Secret Service, now that the situation's far-reaching consequences were being understood. Riley's algorithm hadn't just picked up what Hakan and Aydin's other men had been doing. It had also picked up what the Turkish government had been doing in relation to Hakan's team, and more interestingly, US and UN assets related to the Turkish ones. Riley's web was far reaching enough that she likely would never be allowed to fully deploy the capabilities of what she'd designed.

At least not as far as any of the other organizations knew. Matty knew her girl well enough to know Riley was making backups of everything she was doing, the kind that even Matilda Webber would be hard-pressed to find.

Like the medical record of one Annamarie Fischer. Had Harlan Wolff not tipped her off to dig deeper into Riley's initial medical eval, Matty might not have ever found the falsified record. The nurse, Sophie Roth, had certainly cooperated, which had made the link between the record and Riley even harder to find. The young hacker's skills were quickly growing beyond what even Matty could manage.

And it made her proud as hell.

Riley Davis had a mind like a gun, just like she'd told her in her very first employee evaluation. At that time, she'd already known the Artemis connection, the breach into the Pentagon. And Riley had embraced that second chance, to be one of the good guys. To use her skills to fight people like her. And then she'd had to meet one on the battlefield.

Hatice Iris. A woman practically designed to be a mentor to women like Riley. In other circumstances, they would have been great friends, constantly pushing each other to become even more skilled, more formidable. It was unbelievable to think it, but Jack Dalton's relationship with Diane was probably the thing that had altered the trajectory of Riley's life.

Just like he'd altered the trajectory of Angus MacGyver. And, in many ways, her own career.

She'd never tell him, not even on her deathbed, but that was why she kept him around. Even after Chechnya. Maybe that was what had made it hurt so much. It was so unexpected, because she knew exactly the kind of compassion and kindness he was capable of, and she'd really thought –

It didn't matter what she thought. If he had stayed with her, if he'd followed her orders and that op had gone like clockwork, they would be in very different places. It was his insubordination, and his honest mistakes, that had led to some of the worst moments of her life. And some of the very best.

He didn't do anything by half.

Which was why it was worth every favor she'd called in to have Jack assigned to Mac's transport detail. She'd spun it that Jack was uniquely aware of MacGyver's skill set, and one of the few agents in the world capable of actually successfully delivering him from point A to point B. To hear Jack tell it, they hadn't taken any chances in that department; they'd sedated Mac as if he was Batuhan Aydin himself. But not unconscious, not with his doctor's notes so firmly phrased.

Every time MacGyver woke up, he relived a traumatic moment. The longer that continued, the potentially more damaged he became. Thus it was a race, to get answers now that he _could_ answer, and before he might choose not to.

There was very little evidence of that trauma, though. And she knew what to look for. He was calm and collected in his wheelchair and his generic suit. She suspected the remote audience actually had better audio than the people in the room; they were using a black ops-style throat mic to amplify his whispers, but the presence of it – and all those strangers – hadn't thrown Mac off for a second. He knew exactly what he had to do.

Tell them the truth until he couldn't, and then tell them he couldn't remember.

He 'remembered' most things. Key bits and pieces, the ones he could surmise agreed with the information that others had shared. He made no attempt to avoid incriminating himself in those instances, either. He 'remembered' the evening Hakan stepped into his bedroom and threatened Wilt Bozer, showed him video evidence of the kidnapping of Riley Davis. He remembered coming to Phoenix, trying to limit the damages by breaking the USB drive that Jill had found. Stealing the radioactive marker. Formulating his plan to release and re-catch. Notifying his boss. Because he knew that she and Jack would have said as much; Jack's communication to Mac on the plane to Amsterdam had tipped him off to that.

But things that happened after, closer to the stabbing, those things got significantly more murky for him, and Matty honestly wasn't sure how much of that was true, and how much he was omitting for the sake of others. She'd expected him to be honest; he'd fudged his share of after-action reports, and he was absolutely not above lying to protect others when such lies were without significant negative consequence. When push came to shove, MacGyver could beat a lie detector test all day. He was a covert operative. Patricia Thornton herself had trained him. Therefore Matty was choosing to believe that any omissions Mac was making now were in that spirit. He was sticking to mostly fact.

He might be omitting certain details, but the omission would cause less damage than the truth.

The other option was that he truly didn't remember. But she had a hard time swallowing that. He looked so calm, so resigned. He fully understood the ramifications of this 'debrief.' He knew he was on trial. The kind of trial that was never publicized, never made record. He knew that the panel in front of him had the power to convict him of treason or sedition and put him in a black site for the rest of his life.

And he'd accepted that. Everything he was doing up there, he was either being honest, or he was protecting them.

He was doing exactly what she'd taken Bozer to task for doing. The difference was, Mac was a lot better at it.

Then again, he had a lot more experience. Wilt had fallen into her lap unmolded and untrained. His instincts, however, were spot on, and watching MacGyver these last few days, she was honestly starting to wonder if he'd rubbed off on Bozer – or if Bozer had taught _him_. There were no missteps. Mac was on his game, no matter how weak he looked, no matter how frequently – and how willingly – he allowed medical staff to dictate that he needed rest. He wasn't playing it up, but he wasn't resisting it, either. It was a perfect performance of a damaged agent who wanted to do the right thing, if only his broken body would let him.

In fact, it was so perfect it was a little scary. Maybe if she was in the room with him, she'd know, but watching him on a screen . . . Matty honestly wasn't sure.

But then again, she'd seen Wilt pull off the same stunts. He was a little more clumsy, not quite used to the same audience that MacGyver had become accustomed to first in high school, then MIT, then the Army. The recording she'd seen, of Wilt handling Director Samantha Bosch on the plane, was Emmy-worthy, down to the headset he'd put carelessly around his neck, like he was running interference and Bosch was not the most important thing he had going on right then. His single conversation with her had changed the cadence of Matty's relationship with the other director, in a way she never would have been able to.

He was a genius, if he would just stop getting in his own way.

And maybe her conversation with him a few weeks ago in Medical had done the trick, had pushed him past that next plateau. There had been a series of missteps with the introduction of the new agents to the team, but something had finally clicked for him, and he'd reversed his stance on Monnegar. Almost past time, in her opinion, but it had coincided with an interesting change in the way he interacted with Riley.

He knew.

She wasn't sure how; the Annamarie Fischer records were nowhere to be found. She'd seen to that. There was no reason for that to follow Riley through her career, which was lining up to be spectacular. He couldn't have found out from any other source than Riley herself, or perhaps Saito, and Matty didn't think either of them would be so forthcoming. At least not yet.

But he knew. And she knew without question the day that he'd figured it out. Not only had his position on Monnegar changed, his relationship with Riley had. In exactly the right way.

Bozer was going out of his way to give Riley his back during ops. Going out of his way to show her that he trusted her, above Alicia, above Tom – and above Jack. And he was being damn subtle about it. It was in an offhand suggestion here, a few words there, a shared look. Subtle like Mac was being with the inquest. Matty wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't been looking for it, and the true test was that she was fairly certain Jack was oblivious.

Bozer was giving Riley exactly what she needed. Confidence. And he was doing it so honestly, so sincerely, so earnestly _Bozer_. Exactly like she knew he was capable of. The rambunctious puppy that was Wilt Bozer was able to peel off the toughest armor, allay the most suspicious mind, because anyone who read people for a living could tell that he didn't have a devious bone in his body. He sucked at being devious. He couldn't lie to Cage, he couldn't plan a surprise party that any agent under her couldn't see through in twenty seconds. But when he truly, honestly wanted something for someone else, the manipulation was flawless.

Because at that point, it wasn't manipulation. Bozer was giving her exactly what she needed to grow to her next step, not because he needed to, but because he wanted it for her so selflessly.

If he could learn to channel that, be encouraged to influence others the way he could influence them, he would be unstoppable. Current politicians and diplomats wouldn't know what to do with him. She knew he thought of himself as the weak link, but the truth was, Bozer was every bit as competent as the agents around him. He simply didn't know it.

Her primary team was made up of geniuses, perfectly complimentary in every way. And all four of them did it entirely through the composition of their character.

And she wasn't willing to lose that dream team to someone like Batuhan Aydin. MacGyver was _not_ going to prison for having the intelligence and compassion to prioritize the life of Riley Davis over protocol. Whether the great Matilda Webber herself had written that protocol or not. Not while she had any say over the matter.

Protocol – even her own – had failed her before. She sure as hell wasn't going to let it fail him.

The tablet dinged, indicating a new message, and she pulled down the notification and skimmed the subject line. Intrigued, she went ahead and opened it.

Jill had provided a quick summary of the report. _No indication of foul play._

Still, Matty opened the PDF and scanned it herself. The final report on the incident at St. Mary-Dismas. The escaped patient – Mannuel Figueroa – had become enraged and physically ripped his bathroom door off its hinges. The noise attracted the attention of the hall nurse, who viewed the damage on camera, notified security, and entered the room to calm the patient. There was a physical altercation that Mannuel won, badly injuring the nurse. Armed with a piece of the hinge plate and the nurse's badge, he was able to escape his room and proceeded from the ward to the adjacent therapy wing, where he encountered a second patient and a transport nurse.

At no time did it appear that protocol was broken. The nurse did not indicate that there was an emergency, only that security presence was requested. As a result, patrolling security was notified, rather than a dedicated officer dispatched from the PSOC, and the patrolling officer changed his route. It had him entering the patient treatment ward on the opposite side of the hallway, and because the patient was ambulatory, wearing scrubs and used a badge to key the door, the officer didn't immediately notice the discrepancy. There were only thirty feet between the patient room door and the entrance to the therapy ward.

There was some redacted information about the therapy ward security, but she could fill in the blanks easily enough. All staff at St. Mary-Dismas had access to the therapy wing, which meant it likely didn't require the same level of security – single factor authentication instead of two-factor. The therapy wing was an internal wing, and all exits led to more secure sections of the facility.

He could get in, but he couldn't get out. Once security found the injured nurse, the patient was located and the therapy wing was locked down, trapping the patient.

Outside of the convenience of security showing up slightly later than they otherwise might have, had the nurse indicated she wanted immediate assistance, there was nothing to indicate that the incident was staged. No indication that the event had been orchestrated in order to test MacGyver's response, or intentionally place him in a life-threatening situation. No indication that the patient – Mannuel – knew MacGyver, or had been coached or provoked into his rampage.

No signs that it was an attempt on MacGyver's life. It did appear, at least outwardly, to have simply been a case of wrong place, wrong time.

Still, Matty read the report cover to cover, looking for the slightest inconsistency.

 _Fool me once, shame on you._

-M-

"Resume debrief. September 19th, 2018, 1400 hours. Agent MacGyver, Angus. Concerning Operation D364-02."

Mac did his level best to shift himself in his wheelchair without disturbing either the mic on his throat, or hitting the one that was bent in front of his mouth, nearly touching his lips. His day nurse had taken pity on him several days ago and supplied him with a little donut cushion similar to the one Jack always brought on stakeouts, and he had already sworn a mental oath to his partner never to hassle him for it again. The thing made a huge difference.

He'd also managed to talk his nurse into wrapping him in a back brace similar to the ones warehouse employees wore while doing heavy lifting. It was his core, more than his butt, that was sore from days of sitting upright in the wheelchair. He'd also noticed that he wasn't doing as well with his breathing volume exercises, and was making a concerted effort to take at least one deep breath every couple minutes.

It helped him keep track of the time.

"The panel has some followup questions regarding your interactions with Colonel Batuhan Aydin while aboard the cruise ship _Panorama_."

Mac inclined his head - very slightly - to indicate that he understood, and he waited patiently for the first question.

"Earlier you testified that on the evening of August 5th, the colonel attempted to recruit you, an offer that you declined. Why didn't you accept the offer?"

Mac blinked at the man, a gentleman he'd never seen before this week, who was addressed by his colleagues as simply 'the Chairman.' He kind of though the answer to that was obvious, so –

"He would have known I was lying," Mac breathed, exaggerating the movement of his lips. The Chairman watched him carefully, depending more on lip-reading than the amplified whispers, and frowned at him.

"According to your previous testimony, you were cooperating. You were supplying them intelligence and guidance in avoiding and misleading law enforcement, and they acted on that intelligence. In your own words, you did so in an attempt to buy time and influence them. Why not continue that strategy? If, as you say, he knew you weren't going to accept the offer, why did he waste his time making it?"

Context aside, that was actually a good question. Aydin had to know that he was going to decline, just like he had the first time. Hakan had clearly anticipated that; he'd chosen that moment to break the deal and up the stakes by dragging Riley up the grand staircase. At the time, he'd assumed it was just a punishment for defying Aydin. Knowing that he could have stopped what was about to happen to Riley, and had chosen not to –

Because of his principles.

Son of a bitch. That was the trap. He remembered Aydin leaning back, waving off his men. Responding calmly even when Mac intentionally provoked him. He remembered thinking at the time that he'd done what Aydin wanted, that he'd fallen into a trap, but at the time he just couldn't see it –

Saying no to Aydin meant ensuring Riley was hurt. Right and wrong, black and white. Aydin had been trying to explain his 'grey' principles in a way he knew Mac would comprehend.

Mac couldn't help the humorless tiny little smirk he was sure was on his face. It hadn't occurred to him until just now. He would have died never understanding Aydin's flawed little game. "The colonel was making a point."

"And what point was that?"

 _That I was screwed_. "When I refused, he ended the meeting. Then he had Agent Davis brought into the room. My refusal was taken out on her."

The Chairman leaned forward, folding his hands on the table in front of him. "And what punishment was that?"

MacGyver looked him dead in the eye, then shook his head apologetically. "I don't know. I assume interrogation. She was heavily drugged."

"You testified that she was brought back to your cell, in your own estimate, about two hours later. Didn't she tell you?"

Not in so many words. "She didn't know what happened."

"At any time during any of your conversations with the colonel, did you attempt to negotiate the release of the passengers or crew?"

He thought about it, then nodded.

"Did he give you a reason for his refusal?"

He hadn't really negotiated for their release as much as try to talk Aydin into surrender. "Aydin said too many good men would die if he surrendered."

"Did you agree with him?"

Mac stared at the Chairman in confusion, which had become his signal, over the past few days, that the Chairman needed to give him more context. The man spread his hands.

"Did you agree that putting down Aydin's coup would result in the murder of innocent civilians or military personnel by the current Turkish government?"

Mac shook his head. "It's not my place to agree or disagree."

"So at no time were you sympathetic to the colonel's cause?"

That was a complicated question with an easy answer. The same one he'd given Aydin. "The colonel tortured and executed civilians, including at least one child," he whispered harshly. "No. I was not sympathetic." Letting Aydin take power would have resulted in no significant change. There was no option where Mac could effectively improve the situation in Turkey, even if he had the right. "Were the passengers saved?"

He knew it was highly irregular for the person being interviewed to ask a question, but they'd been dancing around it for days, and more than anything, he was just so tired. So tired of not knowing the results of all the decisions he'd made – both the ones he'd had the authority to make, and the ones he'd made because he had to. If he'd given the colonel an indication that he could be swayed, persuaded, or bought, would anything have changed? Or would Adyin have called his bluff and still done what he'd done to Riley? If he'd presented himself as weaker, as easier to manipulate, would Hakan have believed it, believed he had the upper hand? Had there been a way to manipulate that situation that would have led to the passengers and crew being released unhurt, and he just hadn't seen it because of his beloved principles?

The Chairman fixed him with a stern look. "Agent, you are not here to ask questions. You are here to answer them."

Mac held his gaze, not backing down, and the rest of the panel stirred a little, shifting papers. Once they settled back down, the Chairman exhaled, as if he'd gotten a nose full of something foul, and continued.

"You said that you thought the colonel attempted to recruit you to make a point, and to punish you," he started, his voice keen. "Why wouldn't he have used a civilian, a passenger or member of the crew? You've already testified that he had no compunction against threatening or executing civilians that got in his way. Why did he think harming Agent Davis would be a more suitable punishment?"

Mac reminded himself to take a deep breath – his two minutes – and then slowly shook his head. "As I said, I assume he interrogated her."

A thin, disagreeable-looking woman on the Chairman's left scowled at him. "Earlier you testified that Agent Davis was taken and used to blackmail you, rather than your roommate, Wilt Bozer, because of her skillset. But to your knowledge, they never forced her to use that skillset to aid them, as they did with you. Why, then, do you believe they targeted her?"

Mac tried very hard to keep the questions in context, to keep his emotions out of it. Why target Riley. Because she was exposed, because she'd help take the colonel down the first time, because they'd underestimated her. It was to punish her as much as it was about punishing him. He'd already said that. That question, back to back with the other –

Why would punishing Riley be worse on him than killing a crew member, or a passenger. They were trying to establish if Riley was more than a coworker. If he valued her more than civilians.

 _She's my family. She's one of the most important people in my life. I'm part of the reason she was put in that situation._ "Agent Davis is the best field analyst I've ever seen," he breathed, making it as loud and clear as he could. "She's a valuable and highly skilled US intelligence asset. She was our best tool for finding and saving the passengers."

The panel seemed satisfied with that answer – which they damn well ought to be. Objectively speaking, there was no question he should have prioritized getting Riley off that boat before going back for the passengers and crew. She was an agent, getting her off the boat allowed her to organize an emergency response and share vital intelligence, which she clearly had if he was still alive. Riley must have gotten first responders to the boat within half an hour of her escape, or he would surely have died.

The only question was if the first responders found the crew fast enough. If the message he'd left helped.

"Do you have a relationship with Agent Davis outside of work?"

Mac gave the thin woman more of his attention. "Yes."

"What is the nature of that relationship?"

He let his eyebrows bunch, as if the question bewildered him. "The entire team socializes outside of work."

"Do you see Agent Davis outside of work without the rest of the team?"

He shook his head. There was no world in which Riley would have claimed any relationship with him other than that of colleague and friend. He knew what the panel was getting at, that he'd endangered their interests for a fling, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Effectively stymied, the thin woman leaned back in her chair and handed the floor back to the Chairman. "You stated earlier that you stayed on the _Panorama_ in order to disable the ship and disrupt the colonel's operation. Didn't you think doing so would put the passengers and crew at risk?"

Undoubtedly. "They were already at risk," he breathed, slowly so that he could express how seriously he took his response. "I thought the colonel would kill them when he disembarked."

"But if you disabled the ship, you thought the passengers and crew would be spared?"

He felt himself frown, frustrated that he couldn't voice his explanation adequately. "I was trying to give them a chance to escape."

"And where did you expect them to escape? Into the river?"

Mac nodded silently. It had been his plan, certainly, even if it would have been a chilly one. "Crew could all swim. EU regulations." While not a requirement in all EU countries, several countries along the Rhine required commercial pleasure cruises to provide basic swimming and water safety training to all crew, even hospitality services. Not that every passenger was guaranteed to be able to swim, if any had been on board. And not that the training would have saved them from being locked in cabins filled with water. Nothing would have saved them from that except getting out of the cabins.

The Chairman paused. "So you didn't return to the ship to continue providing assistance to Colonel Aydin?"

Mac shook his head. "No."

"Can you present any evidence to corroborate that?"

MacGyver stared at the Chairman a moment, and then looked down at his own chest. When he looked back up, the Chairman was giving him an exasperated look.

"How did you plan to retake control of the ship after you disabled it?"

"I didn't. Once I disabled the ship, I realized Aydin had too many men. I tried to jump overboard."

It took the panel a second to parse out his response, and Mac helped himself to the water bottle on the table in front of him. He hated to sip from it during testimony, since he was sure all the mics amplified his swallowing sounds, but there was no help for it. The Chairman let him finish before he asked his next question.

"So you remained on board to disable the ship and then abandon it." He spread his hands. "And how did you think this was going to help the crew?"

"Electric locks." At least in the passenger area, the door locks were controlled by key card. By default – again thanks to EU regulations – the doors had to default to unlocked in the event of power loss. Not of the doors; they were battery operated, obviously. But once the locks lost connectivity to the main system, they should have all opened. But he had no way to know if the crew doors were on the same system, versus using old fashioned keys.

It was the best he could do in the time that he had.

An African-American man, on the Chairman's right, flipped through a few sheets of paper. "The crew quarters were not outfitted with electric locks," he finally stated, scanning the report. The way he said it, it was as if he intended to continue, but he stopped himself, and then dropped the sheets of paper and looked at him expectantly. All Mac could do was offer him a shrug.

"I was never in crew quarters," he added, when no one else said anything. "It created a distraction and opened passenger quarters."

It was understandable that they'd have difficulty determining how much of his cooperation with the Turks was willing. He knew Hakan had been building a steady library of evidence against him. The USB drive in the Phoenix lab had been his own, the programs loaded onto it from his home laptop. The money he'd been forced to plant in his hotel safe, courtesy of the Turk who met him in Madurodam Park. Video footage of him breaking them all out of the Hague. Being stripped of all his clothes, the photo that had been taken of him 'chatting' with Aydin in the dining hall. It seemed like Hakan had been quite successful in his attempts to discredit and incriminate him. Frankly, if Aydin hadn't nearly killed him, he might very well have been shot by law enforcement before they ever bothered to ask him questions.

He still didn't know how Riley had survived the attempt to frame her via INTERPOL. Jack must have had a hand in that. And Matty. There was no doubt in his mind that she was still alive. His team never would have been permitted to visit him in Grand Junction if she was gone.

"You stated that after you were caught and brought before the colonel, you attempted to negotiate for the release of the crew and the passengers. Did you believe at that point that he would spare them?"

That was going to be hard to explain. "I hoped he might," Mac rasped. "He didn't like being compared to Erdogan." The truth was, the colonel wasn't a man who mindlessly slaughtered for pleasure. He killed for revenge, and he tortured for pleasure, but not random civilians. Unfortunately, explaining that would make it sound as if he was sympathetic to the colonel and his cause.

"And you told him he would be no different than Erdogan if he killed the passengers and crew?"

Mac nodded mutely.

"Did you accept his recruitment offer at this time?"

He shook his head, equally silently. Aydin hadn't given him the option, and even if he had, they both would have known it was meaningless.

"Did you make any offers or deals, or provide him any additional intelligence, as you negotiated for the passengers and crew?"

He thought about it a long time. "I don't remember," he finally admitted. He knew he told the colonel that he didn't have to do it, he was sure he would have begged the man not to do it, but he honestly couldn't say if he'd offered any other incentive. Once he'd gotten kicked through the window into the ship's lounge, things started getting fuzzy.

Right up until the moments that he couldn't seem to forget.

"So it is possible that you offered him additional intelligence?"

"It's possible," he whispered.

"Did you negotiate for your own release?"

Put another way, had he begged for his own life. He was pretty sure he wouldn't have, but he couldn't be sure of that either. "I don't remember."

"You testified that you thought the colonel left you wounded on the ship in order to create a distraction, and you left the words 'semi' and 'sinking' as clues to assist law enforcement's response. Did you believe law enforcement would be able to respond in time to rescue any trapped crew and passengers?"

He wasn't entirely sure he knew the answer. "I hoped." He was reasonably sure that was true. All he really remembered was –

Was choking on his own blood, and wanting it to be over.

"Did you believe you would be rescued?"

Mac shook his head.

"So you didn't think there would be a debrief," the Chairman continued, and Mac finally figured out the line of questioning. They thought he might be lying or may have acted recklessly because he didn't believe he'd live long enough to deal with the consequences.

Like becoming a permanent resident of a black site.

"No."

"In light of that, did you attempt to leave any other message?"

Mac blinked at the Chairman. "Like what?" he whispered. The thin woman scowled, reminding Mac that he'd just asked a question, and he shook his head. "Catching the colonel and saving the passengers was more important." What did the man expect him to tell them? Coordinates to a secret base? As far as he knew there was no emergency Phoenix code for "Not a double agent, honest."

He had to smother a sudden urge to grin as he thought about suggesting it to Matty.

She probably wouldn't think that was funny.

"Knowing what you know now, would you have made any of those decisions differently?"

Mac stared at the Chairman a moment. That was, in his experience, a very unusual question. Answering it would be admitting that he thought he'd made mistakes. Clearly the panel believed he had.

And they weren't wrong. "Were the passengers and crew saved?"

The Chairman steepled his fingers. "Are you asking if civilians died as a direct result of your decisions?"

Yes. He was. Mac knew that the passengers and crew had been in danger no matter what he'd done. They had to have been taken hostage before Hakan had ever set foot in Mac's bedroom. Even if he'd turned the sergeant down flat and been murdered in his bed, those people had already been rounded up at gunpoint. There was nothing he could have done to prevent it. Or prevent Riley from getting kidnapped. "The _Panorama_ was always the exit strategy," he breathed. "Did my actions help save the passengers and crew?"

 _Or did I make it worse?_

And again, the Chairman refused to tell him. "Without knowing that –"

"That's all that matters!" Mac exploded. Even he could barely hear his own voice, and Mac swallowed hard to prevent himself from coughing. But the panel could see what they couldn't hear, and two of them openly glanced at the Chairman, apparently willing to take his lead. He seemed unmoved, silently waiting, and Mac had nothing else for him.

He wouldn't have upped the ante with Hakan if he'd known what was going to happen to Riley as a result. If he hadn't, he probably would have been taken off the boat – they'd given him that uniform for a reason, after all, and it sure as hell hadn't been so he could sneak around behind their backs and disable the ship – and Hakan would have attempted to make a distraction out of him. Without knowing what that distraction would be, he gave himself fifty fifty odds of getting out of it alive, or at least being able to send Phoenix a signal. Riley would have been kept alive as another distraction, he knew that now, and since she'd clearly been able to save herself from the fake INTERPOL alert –

Then maybe the colonel would have made it to his original destination port. And maybe he would have kept his word, and let the passengers and crew go.

But it was a big maybe. And Aydin had still been in the middle of Europe, with every intelligence agency in the world looking for him. Releasing all the hostages didn't make tactical sense, not from his perspective. Without knowing if the crew made it off alive, if the passengers were alive – if there had even been a _chance_ to save them, or if they'd all been killed before Mac had set foot in the Netherlands -

"We're waiting, Agent MacGyver."

Mac gave the man a flat stare. "So am I," he replied, as evenly as he could.

The Chairman pursed his lips. "This panel is trying to determine if civilian lives were your highest priority, or if this is guilt. Regret that you were unable to release the colonel, or that your reckless and unsanctioned actions to rescue a colleague resulted in the loss of innocent lives."

There was no question in that. Just a story. Two of them, really; was he a double agent, or had he acted without authorization when he sprang Aydin from the Hague.

"I can't judge decisions without knowing the consequences," Mac whispered, as forcefully as he could.

The Chairman gestured at him – or perhaps at the wheelchair. "You are well aware of some of the consequences," he contradicted. "By your own testimony you didn't expect to survive. Are you saying what happened to you doesn't matter?"

It was a fine line. Self-sacrifice was a noble concept, but the United States government didn't spend millions of dollars training covert operatives – or soldiers - only to have them needlessly throw their lives away a few years into their service. He wasn't suicidal. He hadn't even been careless. It had been a deliberate and calculated risk.

It wasn't the first time probability hadn't worked in his favor, but it almost certainly should have been the last.

"If there was a way to have recovered everyone, I should have taken it," he answered carefully. "But if my actions saved Agent Davis and civilian lives, then I'm satisfied."

The Chairman's eyebrows rose. "So you're saying you wouldn't have done anything differently?"

"I'm saying I don't know if I should have." He was more than done with this line of questioning, and plucked up his water bottle, not caring this time if he deafened everyone. By the time he capped it, the panel had gone back to shuffling reports.

"Is there anything you would like to add to your testimony at this time?" the man to the right of the Chairman asked neutrally.

No. Despite not really being able to speak, he'd given them his best recollection of everything that had happened since he and Jack prepped for Luka's testimony at the Hague, which seemed a lifetime ago but, going by today's date, had actually been a little over two months. The truth was, he _had_ acted without authorization. He'd notified Matty, but he hadn't asked permission, even if she'd chosen to give it to him. He had released Batuhan Aydin from custody and started what he was quite sure was a week long manhunt. And he still didn't know if any of his actions had resulted in the recapture of the colonel, or the recovery of the passengers and crew.

All he really knew was that his team was alive. Matty was alive. And Aydin was out of the picture, one way or another. Jack and Bozer had told him that much when they said it was 'all wrapped up with a bow.'

He wasn't a double agent, but he had certainly thrown protocol right out the window, and it wouldn't matter to these people that he'd done it for all the right reasons. There were also rules for a reason, and he'd broken them. People may have died because of it.

And he'd all but told them that if he was given a do-over, he'd make the same choice.

 _Have you ever done anything to help someone, knowing it might hurt you?_

It was strange, how some of his memories were fuzzy, and some of them were so crystal clear. He could practically see her sitting across from him, on that panel, in her orange jumpsuit and her disheveled hair in that messy bun. Like Riley, he was guilty of the crimes that had put him in this room.

There was no world in which he wouldn't have come for her. It might have hurt him, but not trying would have killed him.

Mac shook his head. "No," he said aloud, just to make it perfectly clear.

The Chairman leaned back, his mannerism switching from intent to dismissive in a heartbeat. "Angus MacGyver, you're dismissed. If the panel will please remain seated."

Which meant it was time for them to make their decision.

Mac didn't protest as the door to his left was opened, and his day nurse was permitted into the chamber to collect him. The mics were turned off and he held still as the throat mic was removed, as his parking brake was disengaged, as he was towed backwards from his table and then pushed to the door. There wasn't a sound in the room, not even a whispered voice, and then he rolled into the slightly cooler hallway, and the heavy, darkly stained door behind them was firmly closed.

There was no point in asking to be present while they deliberated his fate. He'd know their decision soon enough.

His nurse, Stephen, schlepped him down the hall and to the elevator, down to the fourth floor of the facility. This one wasn't as overtly secure as the last, it was definitely for the treatment of more ambulatory and competent patients, and near as Mac could tell, the top two floors were executive suites and conference rooms. The whole place gave him a kind of 'exclusive retreat and spa' vibe with a physical therapy and recovery specialization. The linens were much higher quality than the last facility, and the toiletries were four star hotel worthy.

He'd actually let himself take a moment here and there to enjoy them while he could.

Stephen waved a badge at his door and it clicked – more like a hotel room than the heavy magnetic thunk of the last facility – and then rotated him and towed him in. The room was smaller but still bright, with florida windows that were actually real and gave him a view of the coast. Which coast, he had no idea; it was west, obviously, but it could have been California, Washington, Oregon – all of the western states were within range of what he remembered of the flight from Grand Junction.

It was a nice view, and the fourth floor kind of guaranteed that he couldn't easily use the windows to escape.

"All right, Mac, let's get you flat."

He was able to help quite a bit in moving from the chair to the bed, which had been lowered so they were basically the same height, and once he was sitting securely, Stephen pulled the wheelchair away and helped him out of the sportscoat and loafers. When the nurse went for his Oxford shirt, it really seemed to sink in that he was actually done. No more suit today meant no more panel today. No more appearances.

This was truly it. He'd get to stay in this facility and heal, or he'd be prepped for transport. And he doubted Jack would be allowed to come with him to the next one.

In fact, he hadn't seen Jack – or anyone he recognized – since he'd arrived. He sort of vaguely remembered getting situated in the room, and Jack pressing his hacky sack back into his hand, but he'd been so relaxed he wasn't sure he'd even said goodbye before he was out.

Mac shrugged out of the shirt and back brace, and helped the nurse slide off the slacks. Stephen was no Wanda or Alec, but in his defense, he already had a pair of blue scrubs waiting for Mac at the foot of the bed, which was definitely an upgrade from a gown. Once he was changed, Mac carefully swung his legs onto the bed unassisted, and slowly settled back against the pillows. Stephen threw the sheet over his legs, then surveyed his work with a satisfied expression.

"You're moving well," he commented. "Bet that core is feeling it, though."

More than Mac wanted to admit. Getting sore from simply having to sit upright – he still had a long way to go.

"You hungry? Need to use the head?"

Lunch had only been a couple of hours ago, and he intentionally hadn't had much to drink to avoid the need for a bathroom break, so Mac shook his head. Stephen nodded, rounding the bed and grabbing a blood pressure cuff. Mac was momentarily distracted by a non-commercial plane flying parallel with the coastline, and it was only when the nurse re-attached his IV to the catheter still in his arm that Mac realized what was happening.

"No sleep study," he whispered firmly, as the nurse was reaching into the kangaroo pocket in the front of his scrubs.

Stephen withdrew the syringe of sedatives, but he didn't uncap it. "Mac, you've missed two in the past four days. Dr. Nelson –"

" _No_ ," Mac repeated, as loudly as he could. Stephen heaved an exaggerated sigh, and Mac narrowed his eyes. Dr. Parsons had trained him well; patient consent was something Mac valued, and he'd been strictly enforcing it since he arrived. "I want to be awake."

Awake when the decision was made, awake when whoever it was next came through that door.

The nurse hesitated a beat, then two, and Mac's stomach fell. Maybe the decision had already been made. Maybe he'd actually just been prepped for transport, and that sedative had nothing to do with his sleep therapy. But then the nurse relented, dropping the syringe back into his scrub pocket.

"Okay, Mac. We'll give it, what, an hour?" He glanced at his watch. "I mean, they did cut you loose early today."

Mac nodded his agreement, knowing that if that hour came and went with no news, he was going to continue to refuse any drugs. And maybe Stephen knew it too, because the other guy gave him a long look, then shook his head. "Guess I can't really blame you," he told him, and backed off from the IV pump, folding the wheelchair against the wall instead. "How's about you try to take a nap the old-fashioned way, and I'll wake you up if there's any news? At the very least do some relaxation exercises."

Stephen left him to it and Mac gave it the old college try, but after twenty minutes he gave up and tugged his wheeled table closer, grabbing the spirometer and putting his lungs through exercises. When he'd finally managed to exhale to the yellow goal meter – a measly 3500 ml of the 6 liters a healthy adult male could manage – he set it back down, and scooped up his hacky sack. He was still tossing it up in the air, trying to get it close to the popcorn ceiling without touching it, when his door clicked, and he caught the toy right before Stephen's face came into view.

The nurse just shook his head. "That's not how we nap, Mac."

MacGyver shrugged, then resumed tossing the hacky sack. Stephen was carrying a small tray containing a mug and what looked like a pudding cup, and he set it down on Mac's table, spying the spirometer.

He tapped it. "You used this yet today?" When Mac nodded to the affirmative, the nurse moved it to the nightstand, and Mac used the buttons on the sideboard to raise his bed from a perfectly flat position to reclining, dropping the hacky sack into his lap.

"Well, if you're not going to sleep, you might as well eat something." There was a quiet buzz, and the nurse grabbed the iPhone from his pocket as Mac pulled the table a little closer and inspected his snack.

It was indeed a pudding cup – French vanilla, his preferred flavor – and the mug contained some kind of spiced fruit compote that seemed to be composed primarily of prunes.

Fantastic.

Mac thought about making a 'last meal' joke, but when he glanced back at Stephen, the nurse was reading something on his phone. Whatever it was, the guy's face suddenly went expressionless, and then he locked the screen, and Mac knew.

Stephen must have seen it on his face, because the nurse gave him a nod, then headed for the door. Mac shoved the table away and pushed himself up into a proper sitting position. Stephen hadn't been gone more than thirty seconds before the door clicked again, and a very familiar figure in a smartly tailored suit tapped her way in.

Thankfully his bed was still relatively low to the ground; he didn't have to adjust it in any way as Director Webber gave the room a once-over, letting the door close quietly behind her. She looked –

She looked fine. Better than fine. No crutches, casts, or visible wounds, not a hair out of place. Her hands were empty, not so much as a phone in them – nor a pair of restraints - and when her sweep of the room finally landed on him, she held his eyes a long moment.

"Hello, Mac."

He inclined his head. "It's good to see you," he whispered. He'd known she was alive, she had to be, but actually having the proof was –

Was a huge relief. And also a little terrifying. If she didn't have her phone, it was because she didn't want to be disturbed, and she didn't want a recording device on her person. She hadn't been a member of his panel, he figured because some of his testimony very likely corroborated or contradicted her own, but he suspected she'd been observing.

He just hadn't realized she was _here._ And what that implied.

"The committee adjourned about ten minutes ago," she told him, getting straight to the point. "You're not out of the woods yet, Blondie, but you're no traitor. Prison is officially off the table."

Mac held himself still for a few seconds, bracing for more relief than he actually felt. No charges of treason. No prison. No black site.

Somehow that information didn't loosen the knot in his stomach like he thought it would.

"You'll be staying here for the next few weeks to continue your recovery, and a specialist will be brought in to help you try to fill in the gaps."

Gaps in his testimony, he figured. The things he couldn't remember. Maybe someone would actually give him a little information, instead of demanding it from him.

Matty watched him another moment, and like she was reading his mind, her lips turned up in a faint smile. "Relax. The crew was rescued, Mac. Every last one of them. And the passengers were located safe and sound a few days later."

The crew was rescued. They didn't drown.

Mac slumped back a little into the pillows as the knot loosened, just a fraction. After days of being dragged through every minute of that week, every decision, that was all he'd really cared about. Jack and Boze had tried to tell him everything was okay, but hearing it from her –

"It took us a little while to figure out the second clue. A word of advice – the next time you leave a message like that, put a little more thought into the word order."

He blinked at her, a little nonplussed. Oh. Right. It would have read 'semi sinkn' to them. He offered up a smile of his own, because he knew she expected it, and hers settled into something a little more sincere, and honestly pleased. "Better yet, how about you stop leaving us messages written in blood, period."

Mac nodded. "Agreed," he breathed, and Matty walked over to the doctor's exam stool and wheeled it over to his bedside.

"Got anything good on that tray? I'm starving."

Mac grinned again, and reached out to grab the table. When he dragged it back into place, he found that his right hand was shaking, and before he could do anything about it, a much smaller one placed itself on his forearm.

"Mac," Matty said gently, giving him a squeeze. "It's okay. You did good out there."

He dropped his eyes to her hand, which was somehow easier to look at than her face, and he watched those short, powerful fingers pat his arm.

"Right now, all I need you to do is to focus on getting well."

He nodded, for once grateful that he couldn't actually speak. He didn't have to worry about his voice giving him away.

"Are you really okay?" he whispered, then he steeled himself and met her eyes.

He wasn't just asking about her physically. All of this, the previous facility, Riley's little white box, negotiating visits for his teammates, the inquest – all of the consequences of what he'd done had fallen to others to clean up. Fallen to Jack, to get to Riley. Fallen to Riley, to get the crew out. Fallen to all of them to round up Aydin. Like the first time he'd encountered the colonel, the search had undoubtedly turned into an international incident. Just enacting the Myrrh Protocol by itself would have come with a hefty political cost.

She knew he was no traitor, but he'd cut it so close this time. Far too close. The burden he had put on her was enormous, and he wasn't sure how to lighten it. If he even could.

"Yes, Mac. I'm really okay," she confirmed. "We all are. And you will be too."

-M-

Well, this chapter was supposed to have one more scene, but Jack was going on and on and it was getting a little long, so I decided to go ahead and leave us with a little good news, for once.

Matty's doing what she does best, analysis and lessons learned, to make sure nothing like this can ever happen to any of her agents again. She's also interested in how Mannuel managed to escape to put Mac in that situation in the first place. Meanwhile, Mac goes through his debrief, and learns a few of the consequences of the decisions he's made.

Now, the good news of Jack getting punted the next chapter – as several of you pointed out, Jack has Mac's little slip of paper. Any of you want to guess what two words Mac wrote on it, before the big reveal? Anyone who gets it right will **win a special request of something they want to see before this monster ends**! Within reason, of course. Like, the plot's not gonna change. But I'll do whatever I can to accommodate you!

My Beta Reader Who Shall Not Be Named™ is excluded from this contest, because she already knows the answer. If ONLY you knew who she was, and could ask her . . .


	38. Chapter 38

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning:** Super mild tearjerk warning.

-M-

 **TWO DAYS LATER**

Jack rapped 'shave-and-a-hair-cut' smartly on the door before he waved his visitor's badge at the reader and let himself in. "Gotta say, Mac, I like the digs," he called out, just to make sure there were no surprises.

Unlike his partner's room in St. Mary-Dismas, there was no privacy curtain protecting Mac from the hallway. The room layout was generally the same, however. Bed was on the left when you walked in, windows beyond that. This room had a fairly generously sized private bathroom, which was dead ahead, and Jack peeked in as he let the door swing closed behind him. Then he took in the figure in the bed.

Mac was flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, wide-eyed and awake. He looked pretty dazed, and Jack gave him a few seconds to react.

" . . . Mac?"

The figure on the bed blinked, but the dazed look didn't fade. Hell, he looked almost shell-shocked, and Jack glanced around again. Nothing seemed out of place; no explosions, no fire. Just Mac, bare-chested with the sheets balled up around his waist, sporting what looked like a fresh, clean bandage taped to the middle of his chest.

"Hey," Mac finally whispered, glancing furtively at him before putting his focus back on the ceiling.

"Uh . . . hey, chief," Jack replied cautiously, glancing up at the ceiling. ". . . whatcha lookin' at?"

Unlike his room at St. Mary-Dismas, there was no television on the ceiling. The TV was mounted to the wall across from the bed, and it wasn't on.

Mac's eyebrows bunched, and he blinked a few times, rapidly, before he shook his head a little, and seemed to come around. Jack thumbed over his shoulder.

"Nurse's station said you just got done with PT. You good, or you want me to come back later?"

Mac brought up his left hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. His hand was fairly steady. "Uh, no," he breathed, almost too quietly for Jack to hear at all. "And it wasn't PT. Well, maybe it was," he allowed, then rubbed his eyes in apparent frustration. "You remember Keo?"

Jack hunched over, trying to get a read on Mac's lips as he snagged the visitor's recliner and dragged it closer. "Did you say kale? Like, green leafy shit health nuts put in smoothies?"

Mac grimaced a little. "Keo," he repeated, exaggerating the word. "Did Samantha's PT after the villa?"

Jack dropped his pack, kicked off his shoes, and prepared to get comfortable. "Uh . . . that wiry little Cambodian dude? The masseuse?"

Mac managed a nod, and reached over to his bed controls to start leaning himself up. "Yeah."

"Oh, they got that guy workin' on ya?" He was one of the few physical therapists who was cleared to work with injured agents, and actually know what the hell he was treating them for. Deep tissue massage, mostly. Guy apparently worked miracles, but Jack had never been messed up bad enough to need him. "I heard stories. They said he could make Cage purr like a kitten."

Mac scoffed, and the sound was almost louder than his 'voice.' "I bet."

Jack gave his partner a dirty grin. "What, he didn't do it for ya?" When Mac didn't respond, and even turned his face away a little, suddenly fascinated with the bed's control pad, Jack's grin slipped. "Wait . . . he _did_ do it for ya?"

"Let's just say I never wanna meet that guy in an interrogation room," Mac whispered, briskly rubbing his face again before forcing his eyes wide.

"You hurtin'?" Jack was back on his feet before he'd even thought, and his partner, now propped up a little by the bed, hastily waved him down.

"No," he said, maybe a little too quickly. "I'm good, Jack."

"Listen, hoss, it ain't no thing –"

"I'm fine." It came out a hiss, probably the only way he could get any volume, and Jack held up his hands and plopped his butt back in the seat.

"A'aight, you're the boss." He patted the recliner's armrests. "This thing isn't too bad. Think I'm gonna like it here."

Mac took a deep, slow breath, and rolled his head on his neck a moment, then tossed a careless arm over his eyes. Despite the fact it should have pulled at the chest wound, it didn't seem to bother him. Looked like that massage had done him some good after all.

"Did they give you a hard time?"

"Who? Y'mean comin' in here to visit?" Mac didn't move, but he did marginally relax, so Jack settled in more comfortably. "Not like the last place. You're not on lockdown anymore. Debrief being done an' all."

Mac exhaled, which Jack interpreted as an attempted hum.

"Boze and Riley are out on a mission, I'm really not supposed to tell you where, but they should be back tomorrow."

Mac turned his face towards Jack, but made no attempt to remove the arm. "Without you?"

Even though Mac couldn't see it, Jack gave him a broad grin. "I know I look a hundred percent, but the damned docs are keepin' me sidelined for one more week. Second time I've broken that collarbone, apparently that means it 'needs more time to mend'." Thinking about it made it ache a little, and he stretched his own neck until it popped. Mac flinched slightly at the sound, and Jack studied him more closely. "You sure you're good, there, bud?"

"Yeah." Just as quick. "What happened?"

"Oh no you don't," Jack drawled, reaching for his pack. "You don't get to worry about anyone else right now, you just point that big brain of yours at you for a while. Brought a deck of cards, if you're up for a game of war." Mac didn't say anything, didn't move, and Jack hesitated, with the cards half-slipped from the box.

"What's wrong, Mac." He let all the levity drain out of his voice, kept it nice and gentle, and Mac's lips, really the only part of his face that wasn't covered by his arm, drew down in a scowl.

"I . . . uh . . . now's not a good time," he breathed, but it didn't sound angry. "Sorry. Can you – give me like an hour?"

"Yeah." Jack tipped the pack and let the cards finish sliding out into his right hand, making no move to get up. "Unless you wanna talk about it?"

The scowl deepened, and then Mac silently shook his head, just a little. His left hand, attached to the arm not covering his face, had tightened into a fist, and his breathing was far too slow, far too even.

"Happens sometimes after someone works on ya," Jack continued, halving the deck and shuffling the cards on the wide armrest. "When they get all the tension outta your body, you can't always hold everything in as well."

"Jack . . ."

"Talk to me, man." He cut the deck and shuffled it again, quietly. Then again. And again.

". . . I can't remember her anymore." It was just a breath, there was no quaver in it, but the way he said it, Jack knew it would have been a whisper even if Mac had his voice back.

"Can't remember who?"

" . . . my mom." He pressed his lips into a thin white line, and Jack didn't dare ask him to repeat it, just in case he'd heard Mac right.

So he shuffled the deck again, as smoothly and quietly as he could. And he waited.

"I . . . remember hearing her voice . . . I could smell her perfume . . . but the memories themselves are just . . . gone." Mac's free hand shifted restlessly in the sheets.

"You remembered . . . y'mean while you were in the coma?" Jack prompted, still shuffling. A mindless action, something to break up the silence in the room.

Mac nodded mutely, and the scowl returned. Only this time Jack knew it wasn't a scowl.

"She talk to ya?"

Another short nod. "I can still picture her face, but it's a memory of a photograph. I can't . . . I can't remember _her_ anymore." Mac swallowed, loudly in the silence. "I used to be able to. It's all – it's gone."

To Jack's recollection, Mac had talked about his mother a grand total of about five times. He was so young when he lost her, and then the situation with his father had kind of dominated the parental landscape after that. Mac didn't share much about his childhood to begin with, so Jack could only imagine how treasured those memories must have been.

"They must not have been written back correctly. Or maybe the cells that contained those memories died. Could be why they came to mind at all . . ."

The words didn't make a lick of sense to Jack, but he knew exactly what was going on in that giant brain. "That ain't it, Angus, and you know it," he told his partner, his voice still gentle. "If your mom came to you in that coma, she meant to. An' if that memory of her got used up somehow . . . don't you think she'd want it used savin' your life?"

Mac didn't answer, and he didn't move. Near as Jack could tell, he wasn't even breathing.

"Now I don't know how much you remember about any of it, hoss, but you were in real bad shape. It was down to a handful of seconds. Hospital gave up on ya, turned off all the machines. It was you that decided to come back, it was all you. None of us could do a damn thing." He shuffled the deck again, just to have something to do with his hands. "So if that tippin' point was your mom . . . that ain't a waste, and that ain't something to mourn. That's her doin' her job an' taking care of her little boy."

A shudder ran through the figure on the bed, and Jack let it go, and kept shuffling the cards. He'd probably shuffled them back into the original order by the time Mac finally shifted on the bed, withdrawing his arm only to scrub his face. Jack didn't say anything about it.

"Sorry," Mac whispered thickly.

"You got nothing to apologize for, dude." Jack sucked down a deep breath, then set the cards on the armrest. "I mean, us Delta don't cry, but you bomb nerds, now . . . buncha big babies."

That got a reflexive, if weak, smile. "Now you're comparing me to a SEAL?"

"I would say a SEAL'd wipe the floor with ya, but I know ya, brother. Handled that guy pretty well, by the way. Saw the footage."

His partner latched onto the topic change, as Jack knew he would, and after another vigorous face-scrubbing, all hands and limbs removed themselves from the vicinity of Mac's head. He'd cleaned up most of the evidence, but Jack knew what to look for, so he parked his eyes out the window, instead. "Got a much nicer view this time."

"Yeah," Mac agreed. "These windows are actually real."

"Y'noticed that, huh?" Of course he had.

"Seeing as my previous room had no exterior walls . . ." Mac trailed off, then took a reasonably deep breath of his own. "I don't," he whispered. "Know how bad it was."

Not a surprise. Parsons had been so gung-ho on not telling him shit to make sure he didn't get all up in his head about it, and not that Jack could fault her for it, but a MacGyver in the dark was not normally very happy about it. "Well, bud, I ain't a doctor, but the way they explained it to us, your brain got disconnected from the rest of you. Body shut down on ya."

Mac nodded, then reached over and adjusted his bed into a more upright position. "Yeah, I got that part. Damage to my brain stem, and sepsis on top of it." When he released the bed controls, his left hand strayed to the edge of the bandage on his chest. "I take it I have Riley to thank for saving my life?"

Jack cut the deck and passed half the cards to Mac. "She called the cavalry. Me an' Tunne were part of the boarding party."

Mac's eyes shot up from the cards to Jack's face. "You were there?"

"Yeah, man. I'm the one who found ya lyin' up against the wall." He tossed down his first card, which happened to be a jack, doing everything he could to be casual about the stricken look on his partner's face. "Our old buddy Harlan Wolff got you an express back to Amsterdam. You screwed around for almost a week before you decided to stay in the land of the living, and about a week after that you were stable enough to fly home."

His partner absorbed the information, absently throwing down a card – a ten. Jack collected his winnings.

"So you pulled in John?"

Of course that was the detail, out of all of that, that Mac latched onto. Who else had been involved. Who else he had dragged into the shit with him. "And Si. Had to grab the locals, seein' as how Matty was playin' dead."

Mac's next card was a king, and Jack's was a measly four. "So Myrrh really went into effect."

"Yeah. Same guys who got to you hit Matty's house. Got a lot closer than most." Josh Carter had done a bang-up job getting to her and handling everything that came after. "But nobody gets the drop on the Hun."

"So she's – really okay?"

Jack threw down his next card, lucky number seven, and slowly shook his head. "What did I just get through tellin' you to do?"

Mac blinked, and actually looked like he was thinking about it, even as he dropped a six and Jack took the cards.

"You don't got anyone to worry about except you. John, Si, Harlan, Matty – everyone's good. Well, except the colonel. He's dead. So's your pal Hakan." It was difficult to tell how Mac felt about that information; he glanced down at the mattress, and slowly placed his next card – an ace.

"What about the hacker? She was a UN employee-"

"Clarice, yeah." Jack played and lost a queen. That was fitting. "She's dead too. We used your tip on the semi, attacked the convoy. Last stand sorta situation."

Mac nodded, fingering his next card before playing it – a five. "I figured as much. Panel didn't ask me very many questions about their future plans."

"Yeah, their plans involve rotting six feet under."

The next two plays went to Mac, number cards only. When he didn't say anything – or more tellingly, ask more questions – Jack decided it was his turn. "So how're you doing? Like it here?"

Mac shrugged, losing a nine to Jack's ten. "Better than a lot of alternatives. Where _is_ here?"

"We're about twenty miles south of Salinas. Bit of a drive, but not bad. I took Route One comin' up. Whole damn time it looked like that." Jack nodded his head towards Mac's spectacular view. "They treatin' you right?"

Mac nodded, tossing down a three. "No complaints." Then he seemed to hesitate, so Jack waited him out, winning with a six and following that up with another six.

"I kind of miss Wanda," Mac finally admitted.

Jack found himself grinning. "Yeah, I liked her too. We called her 'Storm.' You know, on account of the hair." Which was probably really obvious. "Wasn't too crazy about your old doc, but she was good, I'll give her that much."

"Yeah," Mac whispered, and just like that, he was a million miles away. _Way to go, Jack_. _Put him right back in his head, why dontcha._

"Docs here say you'll be ready to blow this popsicle stand in a couple weeks."

Mac nodded, and dropped a nine on Jack's nine. They played for the match, and Jack won it with a five.

"As soon as I can walk," Mac volunteered, still obviously distracted. "I can sort of stand in the pool, if the water's deep enough."

"You'll get there, dude. Just give it time."

Mac nodded as they played their last cards of the round – which he took with another ace. "It wasn't just mom," he whispered suddenly, gathering the cards. "It was all of you. I remember . . . sinking, I was underwater. No pain," he added quickly, and Jack tried a little harder to school his own expression. "I could hear voices, couldn't always understand them, but I recognized them. Riley, Bozer . . . you." His partner looked up at him, his eyes searching for something. "You were all there."

Jack gave him a slow, thoughtful nod. "Yeah, bud. We were all there."

Whatever Mac was looking for, he didn't seem to find it, because his expression closed a little, and he focused back on the cards, swirling them on the mattress to shuffle them rather than attempt the bridge Jack had been using. But then he stopped, staring at the messy pile like it confused him. Jack figured he was trying to put what he could remember into some sort of order. All the things they'd told him.

Including goodbye.

"I ain't gonna lie to ya, brother. Walking into that room to let you go . . . that damn near killed me."

"Me too," Mac joked, with a ghost of a smile. Jack thought about letting him get away with it, but the guilt in his eyes was plain to see, and that wasn't the point.

"Knowin' that you heard us, that you knew we were there . . . that's somethin' I didn't think I'd ever get to know." And more of a comfort than he ever could have realized. "You came back. Hell, you didn't just beat the odds, you slapped the house in the face and walked out with a million bucks. That's the takeaway here, Mac. You're alive. There ain't a one of us involved who woulda wanted to be anywhere but right there beside ya. Don't you dare sit there and count time and effort like it's a debt you gotta pay back. You, right here right now, that's everything. Everything," he repeated, as Mac dropped his eyes.

His partner made a half-hearted attempt to gather up the cards, and once he'd succeeded, he tucked them to the side. "I didn't think you . . . I thought I was too far gone," he started, haltingly, still staring at the half deck. "I gave up on you, Jack. I just . . . wanted it over."

Even at a whisper, Jack could hear how heavy those words were. And what was unsaid. _I gave up. You didn't._

"You had no way of knowin' where I was, dude," Jack pointed out. "Can't blame you for wanting to check out. Besides," and he set his cards aside, as well, "from where I'm sittin', you fought like hell."

Mac didn't say anything else.

"Which reminds me." Jack leaned forward and fished his wallet out of his back pocket. "Been hangin' onto this for ya." From behind his license, he withdrew a folded slip of paper. "Thought you might want it back."

He offered it, still folded, and Mac stared at it for a long moment before he slowly accepted it. "You read it."

"Nope." The wallet went back into his pocket. "Figured if you want me to know, you'll tell me."

Mac rubbed the piece of paper between his fingers, not opening it, just feeling it. ". . . it was bad," he whispered, staring at the scrap. It had writing on the back, some kind of order form from St. Mary-Dismas, and he rotated it as if studying it. "I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. It was like Venezuela, but . . ."

He trailed off, but it was all too easy for Jack to fill in the blanks. "But this time it hurt."

Mac nodded.

"Well, bud, just goes to show you're as human as the rest of us. There's a reason I don't wanna die in pain. Been way too close, too many times already. You know that."

Mac nodded again, more rapidly. Hell, he'd been there for one of the worst. Kind of the same deal. Being crushed and suffocating, pinned and trapped in a too-small, too-hot space. "I'm sorry you hadda go through that," Jack told him, doing his damnedest to keep his voice steady. Neither one of them needed a guilt fest here. "It's about the worst way I can think of to go. Way the hell worse in the moment than you'd ever think on paper."

The urgent need to breathe, actually _feeling_ your body dying. There was something terrifying and immediate about suffocating, way worse than getting shot, way worse than bleeding out.

"I . . . I've almost drowned, been waterboarded, but this . . ." The piece of paper kept turning, over and over in Mac's fingers. "It just . . . it hurt too much."

And knowing what Mac had been through, that was saying a lot.

"Gettin' stabbed is way worse than gettin' shot, in my opinion." Cold steel against warm organs, every time it happened it felt so damn surreal. A bullet wound, particularly low speed or small caliber, felt like someone jammed a peach pit into your muscles. But a knife was immediate, sharp, cutting pain. You knew damn well exactly how much damage that blade was doing the moment it touched your skin.

"Y'don't know till that moment how bad somethin' can hurt," Jack said quietly. "And the way your body reacts to it, the panic's just as bad as the pain."

Mac didn't say anything, didn't move.

"Does it hurt, when you wake up?" Because there was no reason to ask if he felt the panic. That had become crystal clear over the last month of watching him struggle with it.

His partner cocked his head to the side, as if he was really thinking about it. "Yeah," he finally decided. "Worse when the injury was fresh, but . . ." One of his hands strayed from the slip of paper back to the bandage. "For the first few seconds, the memory of it feels real."

"And it ain't gettin' better, now that you don't got all that crap on you when you're sleepin'?"

Mac took a deep breath, then shook his head. "Not really." A little frown replaced his thinking face. "My lungs actually seize. Just like-"

Just like they had when there was a big-ass combat knife bisecting one of 'em.

"It's no fun, but I'm dealing with it," Mac added, his rasp slightly louder.

He certainly looked like he was dealing with it, and Jack was pretty sure he'd continue to look like he was dealing with it, right up until he couldn't. "Maybe when you get back to familiar territory, your brain'll settle back down." The familiar smells and sounds of home sometimes soothed his own night terrors. But sometimes it didn't make a damn bit of difference. And based on the frown Mac was still wearing, he wasn't holding out much hope of that.

"Those enforced naps not helpin'?"

Mac gave an eloquent shrug. "It . . . not yet. But they will."

Jack inhaled deeply, scrubbing his own face. _Oh bud_. "You talk to your doc about it?"

The look Mac gave him almost made Jack laugh. Almost. "Not in so many words."

Yeah. Tellin' a doc that you wanted to hurry up and die every time you woke up was probably a one-way ticket to a lot of drugs and early retirement. "Pretty sure they're kinda on to you already, dawg."

Mac gave him another shrug, this one slightly more Mac-like, and he offered back the piece of paper, still folded. "You mind hanging onto that for a while longer?"

"Not at all." It seemed like the only burden he could take off his partner, and Jack accepted it, slipping the little sheet of paper back into his wallet. "It'll be here when you need it."

"I know," Mac whispered matter-of-factly. And like last time, Jack clearly heard what went unsaid.

-M-

 **ONE WEEK LATER**

 **Can I borrow your brain in 2-L7?**

Riley glanced at the text and, without missing a step, reversed course from the building's exit to the main stairwell. In her opinion, Jill Morgan was the queen of 'vaugetexting,' and just going to see her in person was going to be less effort than the twenty texts it would take to extract from her what she actually wanted.

Because 'can I borrow your brain' could mean literally anything. Once Jill had asked her to come up to get her opinion on the relative translucency of three vials of light blue liquid that had turned out to be extremely potent neurotoxins that were heading for a presentation in DC, and Jill wanted to know which one looked the most 'ominous.'

When Riley had told her they all looked like toilet bowl cleaner, she'd then been asked to review three more racks, in green, amber, and purple. 

More alarmingly, three days later Jill had returned, and tracked her down to let her know how many of her colleagues had complimented her on her visual aide choices related specifically to the dye suggestions.

Nerds fixated on weird shit. Riley now mentally compared it to the way some chicks fangirled over a single line of elegant code, which made Jill's enthusiastic delight at least somewhat relatable.

So when the doors slid open on Lab 7, on the second floor, and Riley saw Dr. Melissa Talbot sitting beside Jill, she figured the doc had just gotten roped in to something similar involving god only knew what kind of chemical monstrosity.

"What's up?" She left off the 'doc,' because it was a little too Bozer, but heard his mental voice in her brain just the same. She had spent far too much time with these people in the last two months.

Both of the women looked up from a laptop screen, both smiling, and Riley returned it with a wary one of her own. "Okay, now I'm officially worried. Should I just . . .?" She gestured back at the door she'd just come through.

"Just the person I was hoping to see!" Jill enthused, popping up out of her lab chair. "I think we've got it!"

Riley made a half-hearted interested face, and dumped her bag on one of the empty lab counters. "That's great! Uh, what exactly?"

"A solution for Mac's night terrors. Well, a temporary work-around," Jill corrected herself, inviting Riley over. Dr. Talbot didn't correct the other woman, so Riley accepted, and leaned over the bench, focusing on the screen.

Near as she could tell, it was a lot of squiggly lines. "What am I looking at?"

"Brainwave patterns. Specifically, MacGyver's." This came from Melissa, and was much more calm. "We finally got at least some of his results from the studies done at St. Mary-Dismas, as well as Dr. Parsons' evaluation of the data."

"Okay," Riley agreed vaguely. "What does it say?"

"Well, it says pretty much what we already knew. His brain isn't entering REM sleep in a predictable pattern. Since sleep is primarily governed by the brain stem, and specifically the structures in Mac's that were damaged, that's not a surprise. What _was_ a surprise was his blood work."

Riley glanced at the second graph, that reminded her of mass spectrometer detections. It was pretty clear both Jill and Melissa were extremely happy about something, but the columns had names like 'GABA **A** /glycine' and Riley had a sudden glimpse of what it must be like for Jack, at pretty much all of their mission briefings.

"One of the tests they were running on Mac during his sleep studies was collecting readings on hormones and other secretions in his blood during the different phases of sleep. These were very small samples, taken at sixty second intervals, so in and of themselves they didn't indicate anything overtly wrong. But trended over time, and sent through more complex analysis, they showed us that his brain is secreting more –" The doctor suddenly cut herself off, and shot Riley an apologetic look. "Stop me if you already know this, but when you're sleeping, your muscles are partially paralyzed, to prevent you from moving when you dream."

She sort of vaguely recalled that from high school biology, so Riley nodded.

"When he enters REM incorrectly, other sections of his brain are responding by producing more of that paralytic over a longer period of time, which is knocking him back out of REM, and the disruption of the sleep cycle means his brain is much more susceptible to arousal. It's waking him up." She gestured at the chart, and three of the bars that were higher than the 'normal' profile superimposed on them. "The half-life on these hormones is short, just seconds, but because his brain wasn't at the end of a normal sleep cycle, not only is his hippocampus more active – triggering that looping memory – but during his first few seconds of consciousness, he's experiencing what we call sleep paralysis."

"That sounds . . . awful." Not only was he remembering something terrible, he actually couldn't move while it was happening. It explained why he just lay there gasping, instead of jumping out of the bed, or trying to ward off an invisible enemy.

"Sleep paralysis is terrifying even if you're not having a nightmare," the doctor agreed. "In this case, it's only reinforcing the looping trauma. It's brief enough that he may not even be aware it's happening."

"Okay, so . . ." Riley glanced at the data again, this time able to at least see how the spike in the hormones coincided with Mac's brainwaves. "What can you do?"

"Well." Jill tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, which Riley knew was a tell that Jill was super excited about what she was about to say. "His brain doesn't always enter REM incorrectly. Sometimes it gets it right. In the last four sleep studies, he's managed to enter and maintain a couple pretty good REM cycles – more than five minutes apiece. And they're getting longer."

Okay, so . . . his brain was slowly figuring out how to dream again. "So eventually it'll self-correct?"

"I hope so," the doctor replied. "But this isn't going to be a quick fix. It will take him months of sleep therapy before his brain can fully compensate. And if you've ever had a night terror –"

"Yeah, I get it," Riley muttered. "That's gonna suck big time."

"Patients have attempted suicide over less." The doctor's voice was somber. "Letting his brain adjust naturally is the only permanent solution, but over this kind of duration, it would be almost intolerable."

Having had her own share of nightmares – more recently than she was going to admit to either Jill or Melissa – it was all she could do not to shudder at the thought of how much worse they would be if she woke up in her bed, unable to move. Even if only for a few seconds. "So what's the plan?"

"This is where you come in." Jill was practically vibrating. "Scalp-mounted sensors can pick up Mac's brainwaves, and detect the difference between a stable REM cycle, and the ones that aren't so stable." She held up what looked like two little white buttons. "And not just these, but even commercially available wrist-worn fitness trackers, like a . . . Fitbit, or an Apple watch, they can also track sleep cycles based on physical movement, temperature, and heart rate. If we can combine all that, it becomes very easy to predict when a REM cycle is about to go bad –"

"And interrupt it before his brain responds by producing additional neurotransmitters," the doctor finished. "Essentially, we can stop the entire process by waking him up before it happens."

Riley stepped through that in her head. "But won't he still wake up . . . weirdly?"

"Well, it won't be a full sleep cycle, but we Westerners do that to ourselves all the time by using alarm clocks." Melissa leaned away from the laptop. "You know how sometimes you wake up feeling refreshed, and other times you're groggy for hours? The grogginess is what happens if you're interrupted in the middle of a deep sleep cycle."

So, not ideal, but not paralyzed and relieving your worst moment. "So you need me to tie together a fitness tracker and those sensors, and hook it all up to an alarm?"

"Yes!" Jill practically bounced. "Even if his hippocampus is still engaged, the experience should be much shorter."

"He might startle awake, but it shouldn't be nearly as intense as what he's currently experiencing," the doctor elaborated. "In fact, the less 'alarming' you can make that alarm, the better."

"Oh, an unalarming alarm. Let me get right on that," Riley snarked, but she was already thinking through it. Her mom had recently gotten an alarm clock that woke you up by simulating the sunrise and lighting up your bedroom gradually, which cued your brain into finishing up your sleep and waking you naturally over the course of about twenty minutes. Her mother said it had changed her life, but waking up over twenty minutes didn't sound like it was going to fit the bill.

Plus, Bozer wasn't too likely to be happy with an alarm clock going off at any hour of the night – maybe even more than once, if Mac could get back to sleep after the first time.

"You know, Fitbits have an alarm built in, they just buzz on your wrist and wake you up." Riley took over the laptop keyboard, and started really looking at the data – specifically the size of the data sets. "So you're gonna need an algorithm that can match, like, four data sets . . . and can talk wirelessly with those scalp sensors?"

"These are Bluetooth capable," Jill told her, passing her one of the flat little buttons. It was almost like a squished Skittle.

"And . . . he's gotta put these on his scalp every night?"

"More like his temples and forehead. Most patients monitored with this type of sensor use a cloth headband." The doctor grabbed her phone and showed Riley an example. "Jill's developed these to charge wirelessly on a standard charging pad."

Well, that was easy enough. Lay the headband on the charging pad during the day, slip it on and pair it with a Fitbit at night, tie it all back to an app on his phone, and they were basically in business. Except that he'd look like a total dork, sleeping with a headband on. "You know, this is the kinda thing –" She hesitated a little to say it out loud. "The kind of thing Mac would make."

"Yeah. I know." Jill's exuberant tone sobered a little. "And there's no reason to think that he couldn't make his own, but . . . wouldn't it be really neat if we could make one for him?"

"Well, if anyone would appreciate a hacked and jury-rigged Fitbit, it's Mac." In fact, she might even put a little strip of duct tape on it for purely decorative purposes. Or maybe draw a few paperclips on the band -

"My thoughts exactly," Melissa agreed. "So can we do this? Is it possible to compress this software and algorithm small enough to load it onto one?"

Riley arched an eyebrow and fixed the doctor with a faux cool look. "Hi, have we met? I'm Riley."

-M-

 **ONE WEEK LATER**

It was funny; even in the back of an ambulance, he knew the second they entered the subdivision. The sound of the road, the familiar pull as the bus turned first right, then left a few seconds later.

How many times had he been a passenger in someone else's vehicle, driving down these streets? Not looking out the windshield because he was sacked out in the back seat, or he couldn't be bothered to open his eyes. So many times, he'd been brought back to this house.

After Harry brought him here from Mission City. After the sandbox. After a crazy night where he drank way too much after discovering a very delicious way to prepare alcoholic beverages using liquid nitrogen. After getting hit by a car.

After being shot by the man he thought killed Nikki.

After forty-eight hours of detox in Phoenix Medical.

The vehicle itself wasn't familiar by any stretch, it might legitimately be the first time he'd ever arrived by ambulance, but Mac knew the second the ambulance slowed, then rolled down the gentle hill before turning left and pulling up near the door.

He cocked an eyebrow at the paramedic, who had insisted he actually lay flat on the gurney for the duration of the trip, and the middle-aged woman was not impressed. "Stay," she told him absently, not unlike she might to a german shepherd, and MacGyver acquiesced, and remained on the gurney – in his own clothes, complete with running shoes – while several other sets of tires ground into the driveway as vehicles turned and parked and made room for the ambulance to eventually leave.

By the time the paramedic actually opened the rear doors, Bozer already had the wheelchair prepped and ready, and Mac took his cue and sat up. There was no way in hell he was going into that house on a gurney.

Luckily, he could see that Bozer knew that, and he and the paramedic started negotiating among themselves how it was all going to go. Mac simply rolled his eyes and stood.

"Hey, whoa-"

"It's fine," he rasped, as loudly as he could, and his forearms were grabbed by helping hands before he could even bend his knees to sit on the bumper. He was more than capable of pivoting into the chair from there, and he tolerated the fuss while his bag of personal affects was grabbed and threaded onto one of the wheelchair handlebars. When nothing else seemed to be happening, Mac reached over and flipped up the parking brake, intent on taking himself inside.

"Oh no you don't." Wilt's reproachful voice was somehow right in his ear, like he'd simply been waiting. "You're not allowed to go four-wheelin' any more than you can use crutches. You heard 'em."

"Boze, it is literally fourteen feet," he whispered back good-naturedly. "Pretty sure it's okay-"

"Oh hell no, homie," Jack's voice rang from somewhere on the other side of the ambulance – he'd probably had to park the Shelby on the street. Way the hell too far away to hear him. "I can _see_ you givin' him a hard time. You just sit pretty and let us do the heavy lifting."

"You know, like usual," Wilt quipped, and then the wheelchair was in motion. Jack was just fast enough to get onto the porch before them, and he had his key in the lock and both doors opened in seconds.

"Now, I'd love to help you get all settled in," Jack started, making a grand welcoming gesture in a terrible impression of a maître d', "but I got a few errands to run, you know how I roll, so I will leave you two to chill and I will be back with the most gorgeous rack of ribs you ever laid eyes on."

"You better," Bozer told him, pushing Mac gently over the threshold. "Because I have the most gorgeous sauce you ever touched to your lips chillin' in the fridge, an' I'd hate to disappoint her."

"Sounds like a party to me." Jack held out a hand, which Mac clasped, and after receiving a fairly firm clap on the shoulder, he was released, and once Bozer received the same punishment, finally, _finally_ , the door closed behind him, and Mac was seated in his own front hallway.

His first order of business was to flip up his footrests.

"Hey now-"

"Boze, I can walk," he whispered firmly, and then demonstrated it by standing up and taking a few steps away from the chair before promptly tripping over the edge of the green foyer carpet. He reached out a hand and caught himself on the polar bear, even though he was pretty sure he could have recovered without it, and then Bozer was on him.

"How about you _don't_ faceplant ten seconds after gettin' home? I don't wanna have to explain the black eye."

Mac took a slow, quiet breath. "Okay," he agreed, and let Wilt steer him towards the living room. As soon as he was safely situated on his couch, Wilt took off to deal with the chair and the small bag of personal items, and Mac studied the room.

It was spotlessly clean, but otherwise mostly the way he'd left it. Pictures and knick-knacks in their place, a half-edited script on the coffee table, his homemade LA-light-pollution-adjusted telescope in the corner.

This is how the room would have looked when Bozer came back, after Amsterdam. Probably a little more dusty, but this. This combination of their lives, scattered over every shelf, every windowframe.

This is what Bozer would have had to walk into if he'd died.

Mac studied the nearest photo, which was a picture of the team. One of his favorites, maybe the second time Bozer had hung out with everyone finally knowing what they actually did. Everyone around the fire pit, arms around each other, laughing. Unposed, it was one of the snaps in between, and it had turned out to be the best one.

It was common belief that the generation born between 1990 and 2010 were considered the 'Lost Generation,' because all of their memories were essentially digital, and computer systems were evolving so quickly that in the near future, newly developed tech would no longer be backwards compatible with the current .jpeg and .raw formats. Huge swathes of records would be permanently lost, because they were simply ones and zeroes, unintelligible to the next phase of computing in exactly the same way they were unintelligible to the human eye.

Bozer firmly believed this, and had insisted that they get the shots printed and framed. Mac knew that picture – frame and all – also sat in Riley's apartment, and Jack's. Probably in Matty's house as well.

That was the picture they'd all come home to, if one day, one of them didn't come home.

If God forbid, one day Bozer left and never came home, this was the house that Mac would come home to. This was the house that Bozer would have had to come home to.

Had come home to.

It wasn't pristinely, historically accurate. Adjustments had been made in Mac's absence. Furniture had been moved to ensure the wheelchair could utilize all entrances and exits. Even though Mac had no intention of using it inside the house. The chest wound was still healing, and it meant that under no circumstances could he use under-the-arm crutches. Nor was he encouraged to wheel himself around, though short distances were permitted. But the extra clearance around the furniture was appreciated, and Mac took his time studying everything, lingering on each object and remembering where it had been acquired, by whom, and the circumstances around that acquisition.

He didn't have very many blanks.

"Why don't you put on some Netflix, you're behind," Boze called out, from somewhere in the kitchen, and Mac agreeably grabbed the remote and fired it up. He let the main screen auto-play, looking at the new suggestions, based on whatever Boze had been recently watching. Mac's preferred documentaries still dominated the suggestion bar.

Meaning Boze hadn't been spending much time in front of the boob tube.

Mac looked at the lineup and realized he had absolutely zero desire to watch any of it. Leaving the screen still autoplaying some new horror movie, Mac pushed himself to his feet and made his careful way out onto the back deck. He'd been grateful more than once that there were only three stairs, though never more grateful than now, and he cautiously grabbed one of the chairs surrounding the fire pit, and dragged it – left-handed - over towards the LA skyline.

Once he had it where he wanted it, he parked himself and propped a still-numb foot up on the slatted wood.

This, he could watch all day. Almost as relaxing as a beach, but considering he'd been staring at one of those for about two weeks straight –

" _Mac_!"

"Out here," he called over his shoulder, and his own whispery, breathy voice barely reached his ears. Rolling his eyes at himself this time, Mac made a fist and rapped his knuckles sharply against the armrest. It didn't take long before his half-frantic roommate appeared in the open doorway and leapt all three stairs onto the deck.

"Mac! Are you tryin'a give me a heart attack?! How about you give a brother a li'l warning-"

Mac held up his hands in total, un-sarcastic surrender. "Sorry," he whispered. Then he gestured to the skyline. "If it's between Netflix and this . . ."

Wilt huffed a few irritated breaths, and Mac sincerely felt sorry for scaring him. "Sorry," he repeated, then mimed texting on a phone.

Bozer was still glaring, but he was able to do it and nod at the same time. "Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea. We're gonna do that. You know why? Because I know my girl Riley can track a damn cellphone down to a square meter and it looks like we're gonna hafta track your ass to at least that level of granularity-"

He was still growling threats as he disappeared – Mac figured to get his phone, and then he had to stop and wonder if Bozer even _had_ his phone, last he'd seen it –

Last he'd seen it, he'd handed it to Hakan, and been given a clone in return. The cloned phone was the one that had been left in the locker in the courthouse of the Hague. Surely –

Surely Phoenix knew that, and had dealt with it. Bozer was probably bringing him a brand new one; even if Hakan had eventually planted his original somewhere in Europe to incriminate him, it was probably going to be in an evidence locker for at least the rest of its working life. If not his.

Mac took a moment to mourn the loss of that phone. He'd actually managed to keep that one for over a year. Then he wondered if Jack knew that. He made a mental note to examine the phone for the tracking software that Bozer was joking about, but probably actually was legitimately installed on it. If Jack had had any say in it –

And something told him Jack would have. If not Jack, then his lieutenant, Joshua Carter. After all, head of Phoenix security, and one of their very own compromised agent back in the States . . .

Maybe Riley would take pity on him and uninstall it, but somehow, Mac doubted it. He was just going to have to get used to the nanny state. Considering how tired he was even from riding in an ambulance and walking across his own deck, it wasn't like he could exactly make it hard for them.

Mac was still contemplating all the different ways he _was_ able to make it difficult for them – not that he was going to execute on any of the options, but the mental exercise was fun – when Bozer reappeared and thrust a phone at him.

"You need somethin', you text or call."

"Got it," Mac confirmed, and typed in his old PIN. And damned if the thing didn't unlock.

Oh well. Wasn't like Hakan hadn't been able to figure it out, so Riley shouldn't have had any trouble. He checked his home screen, and sure enough, the sleep app she'd written him was pre-installed – and had already connected to the grey Fitbit on his right wrist.

Bozer hesitated, hovering by his shoulder, and Mac glanced up at him curiously. His roommate's eyes were on the skyline, not him for once, and a million miles away.

". . . you good?" Mac whispered.

Bozer glanced down at him, then frowned, and instead of answering, he turned around and left. Mac listened to him cross the deck, back into the living room, and shortly he returned. A chair was dragged up beside his, and then Bozer poked him in the arm with a bottle of water.

Mac accepted, noticing that the seal had already been broken. Bozer had already anticipated that he might need help with it. Mac unscrewed it and took a sip.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." The previous aggrieved tone was gone as if it had never been, and Boze took a gulp of his own bottle. "But seriously, you're not allowed to get any closer to that railing. It's way the hell too low."

It was probably below code, at this point, but it was the perfect height for sitting on, and besides that, you could sit on a chair and still see the skyline unimpeded, which is probably why it had been built that height in the first place.

"Remember when we put up a zipline to the pool?"

Bozer nodded, adjusting his gaze to the pole they still had up. The zipline was long gone, it had just been a lark and Mac had had to return the aircraft cable to the Phoenix, but the pole had had to be set in concrete, and had had many lives since. Right now it hosted an owl box, because it was the right height and Mac had wanted to see if they could convince Paully the Great Horned owl to actually move in.

Mac cocked his head, trying to get a look at the ground beneath the pole to see if there was any evidence of Paully, and Bozer followed his gaze.

"Yeah, sorry brah. Might be a couple bats up in there, but that's it."

"Wrong height, and too big," Mac disagreed, and took another sip of his water. There was no advantage to attracting bats, since Paully wouldn't be above catching and eating them.

"You can't even talk and you're arguin'."

It was very much true, so Mac shrugged.

After that, they were quiet, each in their own thoughts for so long that Mac almost forgot Bozer was even there. They used to be able to do this for hours. Sit silently and watch the skyline, all the distant cars and planes and Santa Monica pier. Hadn't had much chance, lately, even before the trial.

This was the stuff he should have been prioritizing.

"I didn't think this would ever happen again," Bozer said quietly, as if reading his mind. Mac rolled his head on the back of the chair, giving his roomie an inquiring look, and Bozer used the water bottle to gesture. "Just, this, y'know? You and me, chillin' on the deck, my boy droppin' a li'l bat knowledge." Wilt grinned, but it didn't touch his eyes.

Mac watched him a long moment. "I didn't, either," he whispered, as loudly as he could. Then he offered the neck of his water bottle.

Boze nodded, as if Mac was telling him something he already knew, and they tapped plastic. "You think about it, at all?"

That was a broadly scoped question, with very little context, so Mac didn't respond. Honestly, he couldn't even remember if he'd thought about Bozer, or the deck. He'd thought about Jack, how important it was that he could get to Riley in time –

And he'd searched the shadows for his best friend. He remembered that pang of loneliness, realizing that he was completely alone.

"Jack said – well, he says a lotta things –"

Mac had to nod at that.

"-but he said you told him . . . that you could hear us. Talkin' to you, when you were, y'know-"

Mac simply nodded. "I could," he admitted softly. "Sometimes."

Wilt took that in stride. "So you know." It was heavy, some kind of confirmation, and Mac sharpened his attention a little. When Boze didn't elaborate, Mac raised both his eyebrows.

"That you were there? Yeah." In that swirl of darkness and memories, he knew they were somewhere. Just didn't know exactly where. "You were doing a Dora humpback whale impression."

It was Bozer's turn to look a little confused. "Iiiiii . . . don't think that I was."

Mac shrugged. "That's what it sounded like to me." He remembered a presence, that Bozer's voice seemed to be around without ever demanding anything from him. "I think there was music, too, at one point."

"Okay, that happened," Bozer told him, fidgeting with his water bottle. "What else do you remember?"

"Just bits and pieces." His best friend's broken voice, drifting through the black water, begging him not to leave.

"Do you, uh, you remember wakin' up?"

Mac worked on that for a few minutes. "Like, in the hospital? The first couple times are . . . pretty fuzzy . . ."

"Nah, I mean . . . before that. When you, uh, you decided to stick around."

Mac slowly shook his head. "Not really." But clearly Bozer was digging for something specific. "I remember . . . feeling like I was sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I was pretty much there, really, near the bottom of the Mariana Trench. I remember hearing everyone's voices, everyone sounded so close, so I figured you must be in a submarine, searching for me. I reached out and caught onto it, and it started pulling me towards the surface."

It was the first time, in all the jumbled memories, that he remembered experiencing pain. "I don't know if that was it, but it was the first time . . . the first time I remember hoping it was real."

The first time he'd actually tried to stop sinking. Tried to find the surface.

"We . . . we were all there, talkin'," Bozer confirmed. "Jack and Riley more'n'me."

"Well," and Mac took another swig of the water, "talking during tense situations, that's Jack's superpower."

Oddly, Bozer made a sound that was a cross between a chuckle and a cough, and Mac gave him a look. Wilt coughed a few more times and waved him off.

"It's all pretty fuzzy, like I said," Mac continued, hoping to coax his roomie into telling him what was really on his mind. "But I remember being glad you were there."

From their perspective, it must have been awful. They'd –

They'd gone into the room to stay with him as he died. From what Jack said, he'd been disconnected from life support. Which could only mean he'd started spontaneously breathing on his own. Something the medical staff had obviously never expected, therefore his team had never expected.

They'd been saying their goodbyes.

"I'm sorry," Mac whispered. "I'm sorry I put you through that."

Bozer was quiet for a long moment. "I think that's my line," he finally said, thickly, and Mac glanced over to see that Wilt was almost in tears. Mac sat up, pulling himself forward with the armrests, and Bozer stared at him with haunted eyes.

"They said there was no hope. That you were gone." The words just tumbled out of him. "That you could hear us, but you didn't understand. You didn't respond to anything, Mac, not noises, not lights, no reflexes . . . holdin' your hand, it was like one of my ballistics dummies. You weren't in there."

Mac stared at him, not sure what to say, and Bozer's lips twisted up, then he shook his head with something that wasn't quite a laugh.

"That's the thing you don't remember? Mac, I'm your power of attorney. You made me sign it before you joined the Army."

Power of attorney. Of course. To make medical decisions on his behalf. Even in a foreign country, even with extenuating circumstances, Bozer was the one who –

Bozer was the one who signed the withdrawal of life support. That wasn't the hospital's decision.

It had been Bozer's.

Mac's stomach dropped to the floor, and Wilt's eyes sought sanctuary in the skyline.

"It was me," he confessed, his voice quavering. "It was me, Mac. _I_ gave up on you. _I_ made them turn it off. I-I hadda pick your last _breath_ , man."

 _Oh, Boze._ Mac reached over and slapped his right hand down on his roommate's forearm, hating that Wilt flinched, hating that he could feel the other man practically vibrating with tension.

"You've been carrying that around, all this time?" Mac asked, as loudly as he could. Every time Bozer had come to visit him, sitting with him, laughing with him and with Jack -

Bozer nodded, and managed to swallow, but he wouldn't take his eyes off Los Angeles. "I just . . . I thought you should know, before everyone –"

"Bozer. Hey. Boze, look at me." He squeezed his best friend's arm, and after an eternity, he got fearful, watering eyes. Mac made sure his own were completely steady.

"Boze . . . you did _everything right_." He exaggerated his lips and the words, putting every effort into making sure there was no way Bozer could misunderstand. "You said it yourself. I was completely unresponsive. Being trapped like that, in that place – I can't think of a worse hell, man. You did the right thing, and I'm _so_ _sorry_ I put you in that position."

He couldn't imagine the roles reversed, even trying brought a lump to his throat. Having to stand over Bozer's bed, while every expert told him Wilt was gone, there was no chance of recovery –

And the sepsis on top of everything else –

"I'm so sorry," he rasped, as emphatically as he could.

"But you _weren't_ gone." Bozer's voice was at once plaintive and angry. "You _could_ hear us. Mac, I coulda – it woulda been my fault if -"

"No." Mac shook his head. "Boze, you've got it backwards. I'm the one who gave up. _I_ gave up on _you_."

The glare turned to confusion in a heartbeat, and Mac flashed him a faint smile. "On the boat, I didn't – I didn't think anyone was coming. Even if you did, I thought it was too late. I stopped fighting, Boze. _I_ gave up. You didn't - none of you did. You were all right there with me, the entire time. You still are. You never stopped trying to help me, even after I stopped trying to help myself. Dude . . . _thank you_. Thank you for everything."

Bozer stared at him, still with that heartbreaking mixture of anguish and guilt and hurt, and Mac squeezed his forearm again, like he meant it. "And look, I understand if you don't want to be my power of attorney anymore. We can hit a notary right now, before Jack gets back –"

His roommate scoffed, then angrily swiped at his eyes. "An' you think I'd be willin' to put someone else through that? Nah, man. I could never do that to _anybody_ , Mac. Not anybody who loved ya."

Mac sighed, then withdrew his hand. Bozer was right. Who could he possibly ask to take on that responsibility? Jack? Jack had already told him, more than once, that losing him on his watch would kill him. Riley would never agree, and even if she did he could never do that to her. Penny? Smitty? They had no idea what he did for a living – or used to do for a living, at any rate – and Mac couldn't imagine how complicated that would get. "Look, I want more than anything to promise you it'll never happen again-"

"But you can't," Bozer finished, then scrubbed his face again for good measure. "We live in LA, dude. Car wreck capital of the world."

Bozer wasn't wrong. Even if he never left the house again, the odds of having another stroke were much higher in individuals who'd already suffered one. He could retire to a quiet life, hell, he might not have a choice in the matter. He could get a job at the local mechanic's shop and get crushed by a car. There was no way he could guarantee that he'd never again be in a position where someone else would have to make that kind of decision for him.

But there was one promise he _could_ make. "You're right," he acknowledged. "I don't know what's going to happen next. But I swear to you that no matter what that is, I will _never_ give up on you again." Wilt glanced back at him, looking a little startled, and Mac gave him a somber nod. "You're my _best friend_ , Boze. I never should have doubted you in the first place, and I never will again."

Wilt scoffed again, but this time it was a little less angry. "Y'keep takin' my lines _,_ " he pointed out, his voice a little rough, but then he shifted in his chair and held out his hand. "Back atcha, bro."

Mac took it and they executed their most sacred secret handshake. After bumping fists at the end, they settled back into their chairs, and it was quiet.

For about seven seconds.

"We're gonna need to pull it together, though," Boze told him, clearing his throat. "There's gonna be a party."

"I'm just glad I still remember that handshake," Mac admitted, fishing for his water bottle. "Do I need to do anything?"

Wilt gave him a sideways look, his eyes finally dry. "Not take a header over the deck railing."

"Done."

"I ain't playin', I got a hundred yards of bubble wrap comin' from Amazon, and a whole bucket of superglue. You're not leavin' this house ever again. _Ever_. Imma put dedicated satellites in orbit that do nothin' but track you twenty-four seven."

Mac winced. "Superglue? That sounds like it's gonna hurt."

"Not half as much as seein' you in that hospital bed," Bozer shot back. "So you're gonna park it in this seat and use that phone if you need _anything_ , you read me?"

MacGyver nodded, and took a sip of his water. "Loud and clear."

-M-

I guess this chapter made up for the chapters in which only a couple hours passed. I think two and a half weeks just went by in this one. Zoom zoom!

We covered a lot of ground. Jack got Mac to open up a little bit about how he's feeling and where his head's at, and we learned that it's not all sunshine and roses. Jill, the Drs. Talbot, and Riley came up with a way to help Mac cope with his looping trauma. And Bozer finally admitted to Mac what he'd done – and found out Mac felt exactly the same way.

Regarding Mac's two words: there have been four guesses so far! **NYWCgirl** , **TerriJ9** , **I'mcalledZorro** , and **fangirlcinde** r all took a chance – and while they were all very good guesses, they were not correct. Remember, the thing that's truly scaring Mac, it's something very simple, that he could have spelled out using the words in his word app. It's a very basic fear, and it's not a problem he can solve – which probably makes it even scarier. That slip of paper is going to come back next chapter (I think) so you've got a little extra time!


	39. Chapter 39

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Note:** Japanese to English translations – Konnichiwa: hello. Nii-sama: big brother. Ossu: hey. Otouto: little brother.

-M-

 **ONE MONTH LATER**

Jack _finally_ escaped the War Room and glanced at his phone again, making absolutely sure he'd read the alert right. Then he slipped it into the back pocket of his favorite pair of black jeans and jogged up two flights of stairs. He passed some egghead on the way – Dr. . . Biker? Rickshaw? – whichever poor schmo ran the lab that Mac had commandeered for making his little courtroom radiological alarm a few months back, and the Swiss man gave him a curt nod in greeting.

Jack took a second to wonder if Mac had already apologized to the guy, or if he was too low on the list to have gotten to yet, now that his partner was starting to make his rounds.

Honestly, this day had been a long time coming.

Jack twirled his badge on the lanyard like a helicopter, and the badge reader managed to pick up the magnetic signature on the fifth or sixth rotation. Once the doors slid open, Jack sauntered in, giving the mostly dark lab a confused look.

"Hey, brother, you in here?"

No one answered.

Jack paused, a few feet inside the lab, and the doors slipped shut behind him, darkening the space even more. Honestly, Mac's lab was kinda spooky. He knew that kid didn't have a vicious bone in his body, and he'd never create anything he thought would hurt anybody, but he was a little too trusting sometimes, and Jack had never quite shaken the certainty, deep in the bottom of his heart, that one day Sparky was gonna go bad, and rise up against his creators.

Jack even had their R&D guys working on a couple contingency plans, just in case.

But he didn't have any of those cool gizmos on him at the 'mo, and there were just too many . . . _lights_ on the shelves. Little beady green LEDs, watching him, from weird heights and at weird angles. Like _he_ was the weird one.

His eyes adjusted relatively quickly, and Jack picked out a patch of relative brightness, behind one of the fridges. Keeping his weight on the balls of his feet, Jack crept forward, and made sure he was in a damn good position before he ever so slowly peeked around the old Frigidaire.

There wasn't much light because the screen was showing video in infrared. A satellite feed. Human shapes, in their oranges and brighter yellows, working their way through a wooded area.

The person sitting in front of the screen was only a few inches from it, headphones over his ears, but even so, the silhouette of his head and shoulders was painfully familiar.

Jack frowned but relaxed, and glanced around the lab bench before he finally found a light switch, and flipped it on.

The underlighting for the bench kicked on with a little buzz, and the figure watching the screen flinched back, his left arm raised like he was warding off a blow. Jack held up both hands in surrender, then pointed to his own ear, and Mac ripped the headset off with a quick, relieved huff.

"Little jumpy there, eh, chief?" Jack observed mildly, approaching his partner. "Shouldn't watch TV in the dark – didn't anyone teach you that? I'm sure somebody taught you that-"

He didn't get any further. The moment he was within striking distance, Mac grabbed him in a bear hug.

"Whoa – hey now," he managed, but he clapped the younger man back, always mindful of that exit wound. "You alright? I told you this lab'a'yours is a freaky place, man-"

Mac squeezed him, hard, then pushed him out to arm's length, looking him up and down like he thought he was going to find bloody holes. "I can't – they shot you _nine times_ , Jack-"

Jack's eyes flicked to the screen, finally recognizing what was playing when the entire upper right corner of the monitor suddenly lit up in a yellow-white blur.

The convoy attack. Mac was watching the convoy attack.

 _Shit_.

"The – how did you –" He patted down Jack's chest through his tee, his searching fingers unerringly finding the break in his collarbone, that Jack could still feel himself every time he took a shower. Jack reared his head back and swatted Mac's hands away.

"Uh, we look with our eyes, not our grubby little fingers, and second, it's called ballistic armor. You should try it sometime – it's real good at stoppin' rounds."

Apparently reassured that he was, in fact, still alive, Mac backed off, raking a hand through his hair, and Jack finally saw how beat he was. He looked about dead on his feet, and he leaned heavily on the bench beside his computer, his expression a mixture of intense relief and righteous fury.

Jack had the feeling it wasn't aimed at him. "How much have you watched?"

Mac twitched his head towards the monitor. "Second run through."

Well, that was that. "Riley give you access?"

"Matty." Mac's voice was still a raspy whisper, but significantly louder than it had been even a couple weeks ago. "I had a few questions about – it doesn't matter," he cut himself off. "Jack . . ."

"I told you, bud. Last stand sorta situation." They'd all been light on the details of what had gone down, remembering how up in his head he'd gotten the last time, when he'd found out about the memorials for the four agents-

All of the more recent ones had happened a while back. Before Mac had even opened his eyes in that spook facility.

Still, they all knew that Mac would find out, sooner or later. He still had building access for his physical and vocal therapy. Still had network credentials, so that he could work with Dr. Lee on his memory and any other details he'd been able to drum up. It had never been a question of if, only when. Hell, Jack even had his speech prepared, and he was just glad it had happened in here, in Mac's lab, where they could hash it out in private.

Mac gestured furiously at the screen, like he didn't realize he was exhausted. "That wasn't a last stand! That was a _massacre_! The semi - Tunne took a rocket in the _face_ \- you – _Matty_ –"

"We're fine, Mac." Jack tried his most reasonable tone. "It's been over and done with for a while now."

"She must have fallen almost three stories!" This time the gesture was towards the lab, towards the landscape only Mac could see, calculating angles and wind sheer and weight versus friction.

"Bushes broke her fall. I know it looked bad, but she was up and walkin' around almost before I was-"

Mac just stared at him, almost dumbfounded, and Jack grimaced, then leaned against the lab bench across from him. "If it makes you feel better, the manufacturer put that vest I was wearin' in a glass case in their lobby. If that ain't a guarantee of quality, I don't know what is."

"It doesn't," Mac finally said, and this time it sounded a little calmer. "Make me feel any better. Jack . . ."

"Mac. That wasn't your fault-"

"The hell it wasn't." The vehemence in that whisper actually took Jack by surprise. Mac's face was almost unrecognizable. "You knew what kind of man he was, Jack. So did I. And I let him out. _I_ did. I never thought he'd get that far. I never thought – all those people-"

"Hey," Jack snapped. "Aydin was gettin' outta that courtroom one way or another. His boys took that boat before anyone ever asked you what you thought about it. They built that semi a damn month before the trial. That," and he jabbed a finger at the screen, still playing footage, "that was gonna happen if we hadn't'a gotten involved at all. You think the body count would be lower if you hadn't stepped in?"

Mac shook his head, his jaw clenching and unclenching in the underlighting from the bench. "No," he growled shortly. "I know it wouldn't have been. I just-" He cut himself off, and his fingers dug into the lab bench behind him. In a much quieter voice, "I didn't realize how close they came to killing all of us."

That 'us' gave Jack some hope. That this time was different. That Mac wasn't going to take it all on himself. "Boze was pretty safe. Well, except for that whole Hakan bein' in your bedroom thing," Jack added, rubbing his ear as Mac gave him a reproachful glare.

"I did what I did to save Riley," Mac started, weighing each word. "And it nearly cost me everyone."

"Chief . . . if you'd given Hakan the finger, they'd'a still gone ahead and tried to get Matty. That woulda been three of us right there," Jack pointed out. "You know I wouldn't'a sat that out. You know the Phoenix wouldn't'a sat that out. I was always gonna be right there, until every last one of 'em was in the ground. There was no other way this was goin' down, and you weren't the chessmaster here, hoss. You were the pawn."

Mac's glare melted into an expression Jack couldn't quite put his finger on. "Maybe you wouldn't have been forced into that position," he said, the whisper heavy with regret. When Jack just gave him a confused look, he reluctantly elaborated. "I saw, Jack."

 _I saw._

That coulda meant a lot of things, so Jack waited him out. And for the first time, Mac dropped his eyes before he spoke.

"The sergeant, that was – was a clean kill. Self defense. But, Iris . . ."

Fuckin' Clarice.

Jack crossed his arms and gusted out a sigh. "Got a two week suspension for that," he offered, as if that would mean anything to Mac. His partner didn't react. "You weren't in that clearing, Mac. She was never gonna stop, she was going to keep tryin' for Riles until she got her or she died."

"I know," Mac told him, softly. "I saw her on the boat, Jack. I know she was wholly dedicated to the cause-"

"She was dedicated to takin' out her competition," Jack corrected flatly. "It was personal. And I-" He stopped, then ran a thumb over his eyebrow. "I wasn't sure I was gonna walk outta those woods. I had to protect her, Mac. I had to."

"I know," Mac repeated, just as softly.

Of course he did. He'd hopped out of that courthouse on a jerry-rigged zipline, even as terrified of heights as he was, to try to save Riles. To try to save his little girl.

"I heard what the sergeant said to you."

Good ol' coms. "Yeah, that stupid son of a bitch thought that'd work," Jack growled. "If Matty hadn't been the one to take care of the colonel, I'd actually feel a little cheated, y'know?" The second it was out of his mouth, Jack wanted to take it back. Killing was never Mac's preferred solution, and Jack typically took no pleasure in it. Knowing Mac had seen him kind of lose it on Clarice –

"Riley doesn't remember who all roughed her up during her interrogation, but we know that bitch was one of 'em, Used what Riles told 'em to stay one step ahead of us, until our girl was back in the game." It wasn't exactly justification, but it was the best Jack could offer. "If you hadn't gotten Riley off that boat when you did, that convoy ambush you just watched coulda ended real different."

Mac didn't acknowledge the gratitude that Jack knew was in his voice, he just watched him, for long enough that Jack thought Mac was legitimately upset that the colonel and his entourage were dead. He frowned at his younger partner. "Look, Mac, I know it's not the way you wanted it to go-"

Mac shook his head. "No, it's not," he rasped. Then he turned back to the screen, bracing his hands on the lab bench with his fingers splayed.

God dammit.

"But it's not the first time," Mac finally said, pounding the escape key and ending the playback. "I guess we finally one-upped Cairo."

Jack was about to take him to task for even _mentioning_ that god-forsaken mission, when he started adding it up in his head. Dicey getaway from the courthouse, radiation – in the form of hand sanitizer, but still – their field analyst being held hostage to try to force them to do someone's bidding . . .

"Yeah," Jack agreed, suddenly feeling as tired as Mac looked. "I guess we did."

Mac stayed where he was, utterly still, and Jack took a second to wonder what was actually holding him upright. "You wanna take a seat there, before you fall down?" he suggested mildly.

" . . . sure, Jack." He made no move to do so. "Just as soon as you tell me what else I missed."

"Oh, storytime?" Jack tried to lighten his tone. "Well, then you just get settled in an' let ol' uncle Jack get you up to speed."

Mac did shift then, to give him a dirty look over his shoulder, and Jack held his arms out wide and inviting. After a few seconds, Mac relented, and gingerly retook the seat he'd so rapidly vacated when the lights had flicked on.

"You came up here from PT, right?"

The dirty look didn't fade, and Jack shrugged. "Just askin'. Looks like you got rode hard and put up wet." He grinned wider. "That masseuse get hold of you again?"

"Stop stalling," Mac snapped. "What else haven't you told me?"

Jack had to remind himself that this conversation was almost past due, and that he was glad it was going down in private. "You already know the highlights, dawg. Clarice used her UN connections to dig into everyone who took down Aydin the first time around. Was in the works months before the colonel's trial date was even set. Oh, here's a li'l tidbit – she had a buddy in Turkish intelligence. Sent him here to the US to grab Riles from the grey hat conference."

A little flicker crossed Mac's face – so he hadn't read all the after-action reports yet.

"Don't worry, Si and John collected him a couple months back. He's in a concrete box, goin' nowhere soon. Anyway, your old friend Hakan and a couple of his defected army buddies flew into Mexico, and from there to good ol' Cali. By then they had all our addresses, so they scoped out Matty's place, and paid you a little visit. You camped out in the lab playing mad scientist, tipped off Matty, she brought me in, you and I flew to Amsterdam. They made a play for Matty that night."

It wasn't anything Mac hadn't already put together, given when Myrrh had gone into effect. "She killed one, Carter's quick response team took one and lost one. The other two got away. Don't think Hakan was one of 'em."

"Who did we lose." Mac's whisper was hard.

So he _was_ back to counting lives. "Greg Hannagahn." A flicker of recognition crossed Mac's face, then, and Jack nodded. "Yeah. That NYPD cop that kept sniffin' around after the weapons op in the harbor. Kept tryin'a pin me as a mob boss, remember?" Jack chuckled at the memory. Guy was a dog with a bone, Jack blamed it on his Irish roots. It wasn't the first time an agent working a domestic op was picked up by the local police, but jesus, Hannagahn wouldn't let it go. "Finally we couldn't ignore him anymore, Matty had me bring him in. First thing he did was smart off to her with a John McClane quote, so of _course_ I hadda offer him a job. He'd been here maybe six months."

Still in training. Hell of a shot, came from a family of law enforcement. Tons of potential.

Jack hadn't thought about it before, but Greg was the first casualty. No one died spiriting Riley out of Vegas. No one died when the Turks took the _Panorama_. First blood the colonel's men spilled had been Phoenix all the way.

"Matty thought there might still be a State Department connection, it's not like her address is in the white pages, so she had Carter enact Myrrh and let the notification go out. I didn't know she was still alive until after you blew the courthouse and she was almost to Amsterdam on the jet with Bozer. Carter sent the rest of his quick response team with her, since they were already in the know, which is why Keung and Folami were on the ground for the convoy ambush."

Mac took that in stride, filing it away, and looked a tad less mutinous, so Jack cleared his throat, then continued.

"Far as everyone here's concerned, Matty blessed the op as soon as you tipped her off. She had Boze dress her up a little – there mighta been a grenade that went off in her vicinity," he admitted, wincing a little at the glare he got, "and they hopped the jet, figurin' whatever was really going down was gonna happen in the Netherlands. By then you were good and framed, homie – and don't think I appreciated gettin' kicked to the curb for your little meet an' greet in the miniature park."

Mac didn't manage to look even slightly guilty. "Apparently you used the time wisely," he rasped, "seeing as I took a hit from Hakan because you somehow smuggled a gun into the courthouse."

Jack had indeed been arranging a gun to magically appear in the courthouse while Mac had been getting threatened in the park, just in case he needed it, and Jack returned Mac's accusatory look with one of his own. "Your buddy tell you he left a kill squad for me? That you sent me right into?" Finally, he got a pang of guilt out of his partner's stony eyes, and he immediately felt bad about it. "Gun came in handy, but I got arrested for it. That's why I couldn't follow you into the sewers."

Mac, too, immediately looked contrite. "Wouldn't have mattered," he muttered. "I think they had bikes, you wouldn't have been able to keep up."

"Yeah, they got outta there lickety-split," Jack confirmed. "But you did get 'em out clean. One guard took a hit, and I managed to clip one of 'em, and broke another's thumb, but we didn't catch a one of 'em. I think me an' that poor lady you framed for terrorism were the only two arrests, and no body bags."

Mac's eyebrows bunched. "But she was cleared-"

"Yeah, Harlan took care of it," Jack confirmed. "Soon as our mugs appeared on camera, he sent Mouse to the precinct to collect me, and by then Matty'd made herself known to him. Most of the intelligence world still thought she was dead so we wouldn't tip the colonel off."

"That worked, by the way," Mac confirmed. "They bought it."

"Everybody bought it." Matty was probably _still_ sweeping up that mess. "Harlan wasn't too happy we were runnin' another op on his turf, but he did right by us." He really had. "Gave you the benefit of the doubt despite what I gotta say was a slick smear campaign. Still, the locals put your face on the INTERPOL flyers with everyone else, so, rest in peace an' all that."

For a second Mac didn't seem to follow. Then it clicked. "Luka Morrow-"

"-is dead," Jack confirmed. "You flashed your face to too many cameras, dude. Story is the colonel's men were blackmailing him, had gotten to his mom and dad. They left him for dead on the _Panorama_ , and he never regained consciousness. Far as I know, Ethan Darby was cleared of all charges, so I might still get dragged back into this mess, but you are officially KIA."

Mac didn't look particularly relieved. "Is there? More mess to get dragged back into?"

Jack shrugged. "Hell if I know. Colonel's war crimes trial is officially over, seein' as he's dead. Erdogan is just as happy to let dead treasonous colonels lie, so as far as the Hague and NATO's concerned, book's closed."

"And Wolff?"

That wasn't something Jack really wanted to think about. "He ain't too happy with me, for sure, but I think he and Matty are on pretty good terms. Safe to say, I think the only two that are still allowed in the Netherlands, _ever_ , are Riles and Boze."

Mac nodded, and Jack took a deep breath.

"Right, so you blew the courthouse and disappeared, I got arrested – oh yeah. I ended up workin' in Harlan's ops center and Matty stayed parked on the tarmac while we tried to sort it all out. Leo and Pait were assigned to her, just in case, so she called in Si and John to assist. Aydin's crew spent a lotta time layin' a trail to the border and had us chasin' our tails for a while, before we finally figured out he was just pushin' out the perimeter until it was thin enough to slip through. We hadda pull in Jill to give us some Phoenix resources; she, Riley, and Mouse prolly have a girl's weekend in the Grand Caymans booked by now."

That, at least, brought a small – but genuine – smile to Mac's face.

"Jill finally found your radiation trail - fun fact, there's a buncha leftovers from Chernobyl, like, all over Europe, so you can take your 'totally safe as long as we're not within a few miles' radius thing and shove it, bud, because I saw it with my own two eyes," which he indicated with two fingers, "and that made siftin' through it all take a little too much time."

Mac frowned. "I thought I took an isotope that would be easy to differentiate-"

"Well, you definitely spread the love, bud, because we were trackin' about three different people who'd just gotten a taste, 'stead of the colonel."

Mac's expression darkened. "I had one shot at him in the courthouse, but my hands were full. I thought he might shake my hand to thank me for getting him out, so I tagged myself . . ." He trailed off. "After that I just hoped someone else would steal it out of my stuff, or you'd pick it up when my clothes were ditched."

"Or your body?" Jack asked mildly. "Because we went there too, brother." When Mac didn't say anything else, even dropped his eyes, Jack let it go. "While you were weaselin' a way not to get shot, we eventually found one of the video chats you were havin' with Riles. That was enough to convince Harlan. Jill and Mouse got us a lead with the tracker and caught a couple of the colonel's men, but only after they took out a few German polizei and sorta held an office building hostage."

Mac's expression shifted again, clearly wanting more detail there, and Jack just waved him off. "They were intentionally causin' a distraction, Mac, and they woulda done it either way." He wasn't about to offer up his first black mark with Harlan, not until he didn't have a choice. "It was about then you had Riles jump ship, and she called. Clarice released an INTERPOL alert saying Riley was a terrorist, but she took a page outta your book, ol' son, and whipped herself up a disguise. By then you'd treated that boat like it was one of my phones, and we boarded and found ya."

No need to go over that again, and Mac's expression said he agreed. "We got the crew out and threw you on a bird back to Amsterdam. You had Aydin's guys scuttlin' around Düsseldorf like roaches when you flip on the kitchen light, and we got a couple alive. Matty left the plane to run the interrogations herself, and we eventually figured out where all the bees were buzzin' to, which turned out to be Luxemburg. Riley got checked out and joined the party from a German hospital, and long story short we found the convoy." Jack gestured to Mac's computer.

Mac looked momentarily surprised, but then he shook his head. "But why was Matty on site?"

"Not my choice," Jack growled, and then scrubbed his scalp. "We didn't have a line on the passengers yet, man. No way to get that card outta the colonel's hand. Matty and Wolff both went onsite to negotiate with him face to face. Figured he might buy it comin' from someone more his pay grade. I don't think he planned for that, and I still got no idea what kinda voodoo got Wolff and his guy outta that blast alive."

Mac's eyebrows furrowed. "It was designed not to take out the trailer," he told him. "Directed outwards on purpose."

"Just for that contingency," Jack agreed. "Told ya, man. This was goin' down with or without you."

His partner frowned, but didn't say anything else, and Jack blew out his cheeks.

"Went down like you saw, what's not on there is that the colonel's helo kamikazed, with him still in it. Pretty much all of us ended up back at the hospital in Amsterdam with you. We weren't gettin' anywhere with what was left of Aydin's forces regardin' where they'd hidden those passengers, and then good ol' Boze comes up with the solution while he was tellin' Riley stories about you. Yeah," Jack confirmed, at Mac's confused look. "Apparently you went and tried to burn down _and_ flood an American Legion hall?"

The confused look didn't go anywhere. "Y'mean when I was a kid?"

"Yeah. Harry told that one to Bozer. Well, he figured it might be a place soldiers would think to hide a hundred or so old folks, and turns out he was right. Not your ordinary nursing home fodder, neither. By the time we got there, they'd already chucked Aydin's guys out of the building and fortified it. We hadda use explosives to get in, and those old folks nearly took out a gaggle of Dutch SWAT." Jack grinned. "My kinda grannies and grampies."

Mac still looked mildly confused. "How? What was the colonel planning on doing with them?"

Jack spread his hands. "My guess, hang onto 'em until he was in the clear, then cut 'em loose. Had all their medication, plenty of food. I don't think he woulda lost a wink of sleep killin' 'em all to teach us a lesson, but he was leavin' the door open for a kinder, gentler dictator. The colonel had enough enemies without gettin' Europe in on the fun." That had all been strategy, plain and simple. Those people were never people, not to the colonel. Just dollars to spend in a political game of blackjack.

Mac seemed to come to the same conclusion, because he let it go. "And when you came back?"

"What did I tell you about worryin' about Matty?" Jack tried, and when the stony look returned, he waved a hand. "She's fine. Interim director was disappointed as hell, but after the debriefs were said and done that was it. Far as the rest of the intelligence community's concerned, we were in control of that op from beginning to end. You were authorized to let Aydin out, provided you stuck with him and took him back into custody as soon as we got Riley back and IDed whoever else was dirty. Plus, turns out Clarice was the same hacker who helped you smuggle some guns outta Camp Bondsteel last year, you remember that?"

His partner narrowed his eyes. "No," he muttered, "I don't."

"Right." Whoops. "So in order to secure our interests with the infiltration and theft at Bondsteel, and get a lead on who in intelligence Aydin had in his pocket, we took the risk. She got a black eye, I'm sure, but come on, they came gunnin' for _us_. They hit Matty in her own _home_. You think Oversight was gonna let that slide?"

No more than Jack was gonna let _this_ slide.

"Goin' after Matty was Hakan's biggest mistake," he continued casually. "If he hadn't, it woulda gone down like he wanted. If you'd survived bein' taken into custody, not even Matty coulda dug you outta this one. They had you dead to rights, dude. Lettin' Aydin loose to recover one agent? Never woulda flown."

"They did it to distract the rest of the intelligence community," Mac disagreed. "The Five Eyes would have been all over them if they hadn't been too busy securing their own department heads."

"Maybe," Jack shrugged. "Not sayin' he didn't think it through. I'm just sayin' he made the wrong decision, for the wrong reason. He targeted us for payback, Mac. He got greedy, and he got overconfident. And it bit him."

"It bit us too." Mac shook his head, lost in thought. Probably assimilating everything he'd heard with how it had looked from his own perspective.

Which was exactly what Jack wanted him to.

"Not saying he wasn't effective," Jack allowed. "But at the end of the day, it's the reason he lost."

It took his partner a few more seconds, but then Mac caught on, and his eyes narrowed. ". . . we are talking about Kadir Hakan, right?"

"Oh, is that who we're talkin' about?" Jack glanced around the darkened lab in false surprise. "I mean, sure, not like anybody else we know made the wrong choice, for the wrong reason, an' got bit."

Mac's lips thinned. "Jack-"

"No, homie." He said it gently but firmly. "I read your debrief. I been down this op from the very beginning to the very end. There ain't no doubt you saved lives, Mac, a lotta lives. Probably more than either of us know. _Riley's_ life, hands down, and I will always be grateful for that, brother. _Always_. But you also fucked up," he continued, in the same tone, overriding Mac's attempt to interrupt. "Mac, you shoulda gotten off that boat with Ri and used the Batphone. And you know it."

MacGyver stared at him a moment, Jack could almost see the thought bubbles over his head coalescing into an unbeatable argument. He had to go back for the passengers and crew, he had to save civilians, it was his fault they were in danger –

And that was the crux of it.

"I know why you did it. It was your mess, you owned it, and you hadda clean it up. But you didn't, Mac. You didn't. Don't tell me you didn't know that every damn country in the EU was on high alert, because you were warnin' Hakan about it. And don't tell me that you really believed Aydin woulda gotten away scott free. You knew he wouldn't."

Mac opened his mouth, but then he hesitated, and Jack clearly saw the conflict on his face. "I knew Riley would get him," he finally said, quietly. "I just didn't know when."

"Mac, buddy, I just need you to tell me. I need you to tell me that you know it was a mistake. I need you to tell me that you know how important you are, to me, to us." Jack knew he was begging, but he didn't care. "Everything you're gonna do, from this day forward, you threw all that away when you stayed on that boat. Angus, you gotta tell me that you know what you're worth."

It was that godforsaken mission in Afghanistan all over again. And there was something in Mac's eyes, begging him to understand, but something else holding him back. And Jack just didn't get it.

"I'm not worth this," he finally said, and reached a heavy hand to grab a thick folder off the bench, that Jack hadn't even noticed. It was just a manila folder, until Mac let the cover flip open, and the first thing Jack saw was a CT scan of a brain.

A very specific brain.

"Melissa and Timothy Talbot could lose their medical licenses. Permanently." Mac's voice, already only a stage whisper, was even quieter than usual. "Jean-Noel Leandres could go to prison for illegal human experimentation and he doesn't even _know_ it."

Oddly, the first question that crossed Jack's mind was simply, where the hell had he gotten a paper copy of his medical record. "Mac-"

"That's the question I asked Matty," he continued hoarsely. "How am I still alive." The paper slapped back down onto the lab bench, like it was too heavy to keep holding. "What you did for me . . . what all of you did for me . . . we never would have done that for another agent."

"You're not another agent," Jack snapped, before realizing that was exactly Mac's point. It didn't matter. "And we did do it for another agent, Mr. Smartypants. Yeah," he added, pleased when Mac's oh-so-confident expression faltered. "A few months back, we cut a war criminal loose to recover 'just another agent'. You might know her."

For reasons Jack couldn't understand, Mac's surprise gave way to something that looked too much like regret for comfort. "And like you said, Oversight never would have sanctioned it."

"Mac, it ain't that simple and you know it." For him, it was incredibly simple, and Mac was absolutely right – he was family, and there was no line Jack wouldn't cross to make sure he stayed above ground. "You think, what, you're teacher's pet, so Matty burned through all those favors because she likes you? Mac, we had _zero_ leads on those passengers. Zero. Partly because of – of what I did," he added, only stumbling a little.

Wasn't like he could call it a mistake, because he wouldn't undo it, if he had another chance. Hell, God could put him in that clearing a hundred times, and he'd always pull that trigger and cut Iris down. Every single time.

"You had no idea where they were, but we didn't know that. And the only thing keepin' you from wakin' up and tellin' us was a damn polka dot. You don't think the doctors in that hospital knew what was goin' on? They did. Of _course_ they did. You don't think Harlan Wolff knew what was up? You think Matty had somethin' on him, to force him to turn a blind eye?" As if anyone could force Wolff to do anything. "You think Matty _ordered_ the Docs Talbot? You don't think they coulda said no, if they wanted to?"

Mac opened his mouth again, but after a second, he just exhaled.

"Mac." Jack crossed the distance between them, and grabbed his partner by the shoulders. "Oversight doesn't give a damn about a couple medical licenses. You have saved the world. _We_ have saved the world. The actual world, Angus. We have stabilized governments and stopped nuclear wars and rescued refugees and god only knows what the US has done with half the shit you've built. You're not just another asset, Mac, and that is not a bad thing. Just like Riley's not just another field analyst. There are people in this world with special talents, man, and you recognize that in every damn one of 'em but yourself."

When Mac just stared at him, Jack let him go, and gestured to the thick file. "You don't think every single shred of data they collected isn't gonna be used by the docs that treated you to save someone else's life? For me, for us, you're family. I _love_ you, you're my _boy_. But you are so much more than that, Angus. And if you don't figure that out right now, you never will."

Mac swallowed, and if Jack hadn't been standing there the entire time, he would have sworn someone had just shot him.

"What if I'm not?" Mac whispered. "What if I'm not anymore?"

There was no self-pity in that sound. No doubt that was seeking comfort. It was a simple, pragmatic question. What if they'd gone to all the trouble, and he wasn't worth it anymore. What if his value as an asset had decreased.

"Doesn't matter," was the first thing out of Jack's mouth, and only after he heard it did he realize he was one hundred percent right. "Hell, Mac, you taught me that. When the toaster breaks, you try to fix it. And if you try and in the end, it still doesn't work – that effort was never wasted. You learned something, you practiced skills, and hell, now you got a box full of parts. And a box full of parts, man . . . you can save the whole damn world with a box full of parts."

-M-

 **TWO MONTHS LATER**

Mac wandered into the kitchen, still towel-drying his hair, and just shook his head with a smile at spectacle waiting for him.

Not just waffles. Not that anyone could say Boze's waffles were _just_ waffles ever, but in this case, the waffles were covered with fruit and whipped cream, and sitting beside them was a small table fan, which in turn was sitting beside a small block of dry ice on a metal pie plate.

On the fan, which was dutifully running and keeping the waffles and their toppings chilled, there was a pink post-it note, secured there with a square of silver duct tape. "Gotta stay cool!"

Mac picked up the fork that had been helpfully provided, and tapped the side of the waffle nearest the fan. It wasn't frozen solid – yet – but it was probably on the way. Wouldn't break a tooth, at any rate.

"Thanks, Boze," he said aloud, and was pleasantly surprised to find that his voice sort of sounded like he was two weeks into the worst flu ever. He had taken speaking for granted his entire life, never realizing how frequently he actually used his voice.

And how much of a giant pain in the ass it was not to be able to speak.

And how utterly infuriating it was to have people constantly ask "What?" He had decided three months ago he was never, ever, _ever_ going to say that to any of his friends and family when they got hard of hearing.

What Mac did do was something he'd been doing a lot lately – he fished his phone out of his pocket, took a picture of the waffle/fan/dry ice combo, and then he attached the photo to a text to his best friend.

 **Waffles cool as advertised – thnx**

They were also delicious.

Mac made quick work of them, then took both the waffle plate and the pie plate to the sink. There wasn't enough dry ice left to try to salvage, so he let it evaporate, and figured the CO2 would kill any insects that were attracted to the morsels of fruit and sweetened cream left on the plate. He did manage to get a little whipped cream on his Fitbit, which he licked clean, then inspected the spare piece of duct tape, holding the spare paper clip to the band.

Both were easily the fifth or sixth iteration of such spares. He knew Riley had put them on originally as a joke, but tape and paper clips came in handy more frequently than most people realized. Looking at the Fitbit reminded him to check the app, which he did as he threw his towel in the hamper on his way to his sneakers.

Last night hadn't been too bad. It had only woken him four times. He was so used to it, and so groggy every time it happened, that he often fell right back to sleep without really registering that he'd woken at all. The Fitbit and headband wouldn't save him from run of the mill nightmares, but Mac wasn't sure he'd still be sane without them.

Once sneakers were accomplished, Mac grabbed his wallet and keys and was out the door. The morning rush was over, it was almost ten am and just getting ready for the lunch rush, and he made good time. The jeep was currently stripped of its roof, and for LA it was pretty warm, but he didn't mind the sun or the heat and pulled into the parking lot with plenty of time to spare.

Mac parked and waved his wallet at the door, badging in. Not ten seconds later, his phone buzzed. When he clicked the screen on, Jack's face was grinning at him, beside a text.

 **Come up to the War Room, got a surprise.**

As Mac was looking at it, he got another text, also from Jack, which was an emoji of a snake.

"Okay," he muttered aloud, and changed course from the locker room to the stairwell just outside it. He took the flight no problem, popping out on the main floor, and then flattened himself to the wall beside the door as a heavily laden cart tried to drag itself to a halt.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry-"

It was a voice he'd recognize anywhere. "It's okay, we're all good," Mac assured her, looking at the hefty stack of servers on the cart. The second he spoke – and his voice still sounded like an actual voice, albeit a very hoarse one – Jill's head poked around one of the towers.

" _Mac_!" she squealed, and hurried around the cart for a hug, which he was more than happy to give her. "Wow, your voice sounds so much better! Oh, not that it sounded bad before," she added hastily. "You know, in relation to a couple weeks ago, it's not a judgement on the speed of your recovery or -"

"Thanks," he said simply. "Vocal therapy's going well. She's making me sing 'Take Me Home, Country Roads'."

Jill blinked at him like her glasses had made his image go slightly fuzzy. "Really? John Denver?"

"No, thankfully. The version from the Kingsman sequel."

"Oh," she nodded, a little haltingly. "Well, I've always kinda thought of you as a 'Merlin'. How's your Scottish accent?"

"Amazing," he assured her. "And I get to headbutt Dr. A when I get to the middle, which is the best part."

Jill broke out laughing – which was the point – and Mac gestured to the extremely heavy cart she was still going to have to maneuver onto the elevator. "Do you need a hand?"

"No, Mac, I got it. Are you – on your way to . . .?"

Of course she'd notice that he was on the ground floor, which was not the floor upon which Medical or the gym were located. "War Room," he admitted. "Something about a snake surprise."

"A . . . snake surprise," she echoed. "Let me guess. Text from Jack?"

He gave her a winning smile. "Got it in one."

She bobbed her eyebrows. "Mmm. Well, if it's venomous, you know where to find the antivenin."

"Yes I do." He'd helped her catalog it all two weeks before Aydin's trial was set to start. "You sure you don't want a hand?"

Her nod this time was firm. "Yes. I'd much rather you handle any _Chordata serpentes_ that might be, uh, exploring the facility." Then she cleared her throat and got back into shoving position. "And I have a date with fifteen confiscated servers courtesy of Riley and Bozer. But it's great to see you, Mac. We've missed you."

He gave her another grin and a wave, and she applied sufficient force to the cart's handle bars to set the weight in motion. Jill was slight, but not weak by any means, and once the servers were well past and it looked as though she was no longer in danger of running anyone else over, Mac headed for the War Room.

He was greeted by several other people on the way, and by the time he made it to the War Room – windows frosted, for some reason – his phone was already buzzing with another text from Jack asking where he was. He was about to give Jack static for obviously not having the building properly monitored when he saw none other than Joshua Carter standing just inside the open War Room door, wiping tears from his eyes.

"-and then he says, what makes you think I don't have a Jaguar mechanic's license?" That voice was clearly Jack's, in full story-telling mode. "An' he didn't lose a beat. Looked him dead in the eye and said, the way you mutilated that car without a moment's hesitation."

Several other male voices broke out into laughter, and a little confused, Mac poked his head further into the room. Jack was holding court by the sofa with a root beer in his hand, looking to a shorter, dark-haired man for support, and beside Jack was Agent John Tunne, with his arms across his chest, silently vibrating.

"Three days!" Jack added, still laughing, holding up three fingers. "Three days is all!"

The shorter figure in front of Jack seemed to sense his gaze, because the man turned and caught him out of the corner of his eye, but by then Mac had recognized him, and felt a broad grin split his face.

"Konnichiwa, nii-sama," he greeted, finally recognizing the story, as well, and Akatsutsumi Saito turned around fully, grinning just as broadly.

"Ossu," he greeted, giving it that little Yakuza growl, and Mac fully entered the room and clasped hands with the other agent. "Looking good, otouto."

"You too," Mac told him, and he meant it. He hadn't seen the Japanese agent in over a year, not since –

Not since Saito – and his partner - had helped track his drugged ass down to a defunct Boys and Girls' Club in downtown LA.

"Dalton here was just telling us how you first met," Carter supplied, and Mac reached out and shook his hand as well, rolling his eyes a little.

"It's not as dramatic as Jack likes to make it sound-"

"Getting bitten by an inland taipan and living to talk about it's pretty dramatic. Besides, it's not every day this one will admit to making a mistake," Tunne added, smirking at his partner. John Tunne and Akatsutsumi Saito were a very unlikely pair. Tunne was a Green Beret, Saito had been part of a Special Assault team in Tokyo. There was at least a foot difference between them. John was pale, Saito was dark-skinned. Despite the fact that Green Berets were supposed to be the hot-heads and the Japanese were renown for their patience and deliberation, Saito was the risk-taker of their partnership. John was an avid poker player and Saito abhorred gambling, but he'd drink like a fish while Tunne could nurse a beer all night.

Saito took the ribbing in stride. "It's like I said. Mac here's an acquired taste."

MacGyver crossed the room to shake John's hand, as well, before giving Jack a playfully exasperated look. "This was your 'snake surprise'?"

John's eyebrows bobbed. "Snake surprise? Wasn't that that dish from Temple of Doom?"

Jack snapped his fingers and pointed at Tunne. "Yeah, I think you're right."

"His two favorite words," Saito murmured to Carter, bringing him back into the conversation now that he'd wiped his face.

"Snake surprise are not my two favorite words," John contradicted with a straight face, and Carter almost lost it again.

"Better than 'snakes on a plane'."

Josh Carter shook his head. "Nothing's better than Snakes On a Plane. One of Samuel L. Jackson's finest."

Saito glanced around them. "Snakes in a conference room?" Then he glanced back at Jack. "How did we get on this topic?" Without a word, Mac handed his phone to Saito, and the other agent looked at it, then shook his head.

"So what brings you guys to the States?" Mac asked, when his phone was returned unmolested. Si and John were typically stationed in Europe.

"Funny story-"

"No snakes, though," John added.

"No snakes," Saito confirmed. "Unless you count the political kind. Simple escort job. One of our diplomats was playing a little too nice with Russia. Quick extract and a free ticket home. We dropped them off about an hour ago, I'm sure she and her husband miss the vodka already."

Mac very carefully did not draw a parallel to that job and the job that had introduced Jack and him to one Colonel Batuhan Aydin. And Carter saved him from having to come up with another question that wouldn't lead down that road.

"What's so funny about that?"

"Well, I guess not so much funny haha as funny ironic. She was playing poker with none other than Vladimir Putin at the time."

Mac grinned as Jack's eyes grew round. "No _way_ , man! You were in the room with Putin!?"

The next twenty minutes passed quite pleasantly, as John and Saito laid out what probably would have been Jack's dream op. Gambling, looking sharp, drinking vodka, and dueling with Putin over Texas Hold'em. No space angle, which was Jack's true dream – to fight Putin in space – but the rest of it lined up nicely. Tunne was plenty happy to lord it over him, and Jack was still drooling when Mac bid everyone goodbye – with a promise to catch up that evening – and slipped from the War Room to head to physical therapy.

"I'll walk you. Have to drop something off," Saito called, and since John was still regaling Carter and Jack over the truly abominable security that had been surrounding the Russian Presidential entourage, it was easy for him to tag along.

"I understand I owe you a thank you," Mac told the Asian agent, once they were clear of the door and the agents groaning in delighted disbelief.

Saito shrugged. "I owed those guys plenty of payback myself. Happy to have been roped in a few weeks earlier this time."

Mac scoffed. "John looks good." He'd gone through enough of the after-action reports now to know that the rocket backblast had simply kissed the other agent, instead of torching his entire skull, but there wasn't a single indication of the burns on the man's face. He looked a little less sunburned – and scar tissue tended to be a bit tougher and less likely to redden from the sun, as Mac well knew himself – but otherwise Mac never would have known anything had happened to him five months ago.

"Yeah, he's good," Saito confirmed, and the two men headed side by side towards the stairwell. "Didn't learn a damn thing, either. Wherever we end up tonight, don't let him light the grill."

"Done," Mac agreed, and they proceeded into the stairwell.

Saito lingered a little when they hit the first landing, glancing upward, and Mac paused with him, then followed his gaze curiously. "Uh . . . see something?"

"No." Saito glanced down the stairs as well, through the space between the flights, but they seemed utterly empty. Just the two of them. Then Saito glanced at the bubble camera on the wall just above them.

"This one have sound?"

Mac walked over to it, inspecting it for the telltale pinhole that would indicate a covered mic. "No, don't think so."

"Good." Without another word, Saito continued down the stairs. Mac stared after him, but halfway down the next flight, the other agent paused and leaned against the exterior rail, clearly waiting.

Also clearly in the closest thing to a blind spot the dome camera had.

Mac cocked his head at the other agent, but followed his lead, and paused beside him, also against the exterior railing. "You know, there are rooms we could use, if you want to talk-"

"This is fine," Saito cut him off, and then turned to look up at him – Mac was two stairs higher. "Get your ass down here, bakayarou."

Mac did so, taking two steps below him so they were basically the same height. "Okay –"

"How's Riley?" he asked, with no further preamble.

Mac took a second to look at the facts. In a stairwell with no possibility of audio recording, in a camera blind spot so their lips couldn't be read. There weren't many rooms he could say that about, short of janitor closets, and if the two of them ducked into one of those, well, it would be clear they were up to something.

Except his phone, of course. His phone could still be recording audio. Mac took it out only to find that it was already off.

Saito had turned it off before he'd handed it back to him in the War Room.

"Fine," Mac finally answered, cautiously. "Back from an op last night. She and Boze-"

Saito made an impatient gesture, cutting him off. "How's Riley?" he repeated flatly, in exactly the same tone.

Mac stared at the other agent, casting his mind back to the op. Saito had been there when Riley was recovered from the lock. Jack had assigned him to her protection detail, it was the only reason Saito hadn't been on the ship to find him with Jack and John, and why Saito hadn't been on the ground for the convoy ambush. Which meant Saito had gone with Riley to the hospital in Germany to get checked out, before she got back on the op. Her medical files were sealed, of course, Mac had no idea what they said –

But Saito had been there with her. Probably actually in her patient room, considering Aydin's people had already made a play for her and had never intended to let her survive.

So he played dumb. "Fine," he repeated, also in the same tone. Saito frowned at him.

"Funny how both of you can't seem to remember the same block of time on that ship," he said quietly, and Mac's stomach dropped. "You're telling me you didn't do a basic first aid check on an interrogated, unconscious agent?"

"Of course I did," Mac said, equally quietly. "No broken bones, no internal bleeding. I kept her head elevated and airway clear until she regained consciousness." He tried to sound as if the question confused him. "Why?"

Riley hadn't said anything to him about it. Not since the day she brought the little white box to his room in St. Mary-Dismas, and told him that they'd talk about it when he had a voice. He'd had a voice now for months, even if it was rough and scratchy, and in all the times she'd come to the house to grill out, or tweak his sleep app, or just hung out with the team, she'd never mentioned it once. And it was crystal clear to him that Jack didn't know and didn't suspect. If she could keep something like that from Jack -

Then she'd been keeping it from everyone. It was still there between them, but Mac wasn't going to push. It wasn't his story to tell, and if Riley wanted Saito to know, she would have told him.

Unless he'd figured it out on his own.

Saito gave him a long look. "You're a good man," he said, finally. "And I trust you. If you say she's good, she's good."

Belatedly, Mac realized what Saito was actually asking him. If Si knew – or had suspicions – then he was asking what, if anything, Mac had noticed in the first couple hours after Riley had been brought back to the cell. And what he might have done about it – or with any evidence.

Again, not his story to tell. "I obviously haven't been on an op with her," he started, a little reluctantly, "but I haven't heard of anything going sideways. And Jack's not helicoptering, if that's what you mean."

And that actually was telling. Getting drugged, beaten, and interrogated was always a terrible, frightening experience. What Riley had gone through, just the parts that Mac knew for certain, was awful. Highly trained agents had quit over less. And Jack _wasn't_ hovering. He was paying attention to her, certainly, and Mac didn't begrudge the man a second of it. Bozer, too, was being supportive – now that he'd finally gotten over hating on the two agents that had been assigned to replace –

Him. The team was careful about it, but Mac knew exactly why Alicia Wright and Tom Monnegar were temporarily assigned to his team. And he didn't begrudge them that, either.

Saito watched him, his eyes dark and sharp, for long enough that Mac finally raised his eyebrows. "Are you . . . asking about something specifically . . .?"

The other agent shook his head. "No," he said finally, in the exact same tone. Giving nothing away. "I was just a little worried about her. That was a bad op."

Mac gave him a small, humorless smile. "The more I learn about it, the worse it gets."

Si regarded him a long moment. "How are you doing?"

This was much less treacherous water. "Coming along," he told him, and he meant it. "Don't have full range of motion in my right shoulder and chest, yet, but it's getting there."

"And your melon?"

He should have been surprised that the other agent was so blunt, but this was Saito, and that was how they'd always worked. "Better than it should be." Saito had been sent back to Europe after debriefs, so he probably hadn't been around to be a voyeur like it seemed everyone else in the entire building had been. "What, you're not getting the newsletter? I'm gonna be fine, Saito. And hey – thank you." Though his voice was hoarse, he tried hard to communicate his gratitude through it. "Thanks for everything you did to keep Jack alive, and Riley safe."

 _Thank you for cleaning up my mess._

The Japanese agent gave him another long look. "You're getting better at lying."

Mac tried to look innocent. "Uh, thanks, Saito-san."

Saito snorted, then leaned back against the railing. "You coming back?"

"Everyone seems to think so."

"I'm not asking everyone," Si shot back dismissively. "I'm asking you."

It occurred to Mac that maybe he'd underestimated the difficulty level of this conversation. "I don't know," he said honestly. "I don't know that protocol would-"

Saito waved a hand, silencing him. "Pending approval, got it. Are you going to apply for agent status again, or not?"

No one had outright asked him, and all the prepared statements he'd conjured up to sidestep it were useless against such a direct question. ". . . I don't know," he repeated.

Saito nodded thoughtfully, crossing his arms over his chest as if he intended to camp out there for some time. "Is it a question of desire, or competency?"

Mac took a breath to answer him, but his mind blanked on him, and in the end, he just exhaled, silently.

 _I don't know._

"If there's any question in your mind, the correct answer's no," Saito told him shortly. "If you go out there like this, you're going to wind up dead. Worse, you're going to take others with you."

Mac didn't say anything, because he had nothing to add. Saito was right.

"Jack was completely out of control," Saito continued, his voice quiet and somehow not echoing in the empty stairwell. "He nearly got my partner killed. I still don't know how either of them walked away."

Even after watching the footage four times, Mac hadn't figured that one out either.

"I don't know how _you_ walked away. And I don't think you appreciate how many people care that you did. So this? This can't happen again. The _second_ you had control of the asset, you should have been gone."

It was the same assessment he would have made with the information that they had, so Mac stayed silent.

"And the colonel was never the asset," Saito continued clinically. "You went back to teach him a lesson. You were just as out of control as Dalton was."

Mac held his tongue, and after a few seconds of silence, Saito frowned at him.

"I'm clearly not telling you anything you don't know. So what's the problem? Angus MacGyver's never made a mistake before?"

He knew the other agent was baiting him, intentionally feeling him out, so he gave the man an easy smile. "You know that's not true." He'd made plenty, in direct line of sight of one Akatsutsumi Saito.

"I do," the other agent confirmed, not softened by Mac's attempt to lighten the mood. "You've done the analysis. You're walking and talking and I already know that you could drop fifty IQ points and still be one of the best agents out there. So this is a question of desire. You don't know if you want it."

It was getting a little harder not to take the analysis personally, so Mac examined Saito's logic, instead. Generally speaking, the other agent wasn't wrong. His test scores from an intellectual perspective were still far above average for covert operatives. Even with the sleep issues, his reflexes were okay, he was still capable of learning and adapting and navigating complex problems. Maybe not like he had been, but he was quickly learning that he wasn't gaining anything by comparing himself to himself. He didn't have to meet his last personal best to be an agent, technically. He just had to meet the requirements of the exams.

"Whatever you decide, MacGyver, you need to make that decision with a clear conscience. It's not up to me, it's not up to Dalton, or Oversight, or Webber, or some suit on Capitol Hill. You can't waver, and you can't resent it. This isn't a decision you make with your brain." The other agent reached out and rapped Mac's chest, practically on top of the scar on his chest, and Mac couldn't help a little flinch.

"You make it right here, little brother. You make it from the place that's torn up the most."

Mac swallowed, trying to shrug off the flinch. "I, uh, forgot how encouraging you can be, Saito-san."

The other agent snorted again. "You wanna be coddled, you're in the wrong building." He gave Mac a once-over he swore he could actually feel, tingling from his scalp to his toes. "Now, you've never listened to me before, but I'm a closet optimist. And I know what I'm talking about."

Mac knew that was true. He didn't know all the details about the op in Lisbon, nor did he have all the details on why it had taken Saito so long to come back afterwards, but he knew with absolute certainty that the other agent knew exactly how he was feeling.

Mac inclined his head. "Thank you."

"Any time," Saito replied, in a way that told Mac he truly meant, literally, any time. Mac was still chewing on all the possible things Saito was referring to with those two simple words, when the other agent clapped him on the shoulder and then continued past him down the stairs. "Let's get you to the gym, and me to the locker room."

Mac felt his eyebrows furrow as he followed the other agent down the stairs. "What do you need in the locker room?"

"Nothing," Saito told him, holding open the door. "I just wanna mess with Dalton."

Mac snorted, and then they entered the hallway, with Saito peeling off for the locker room – and apparently Jack's locker – with a careless wave. Mac shook his head and headed in the opposite direction, towards the gym.

His physical therapy no longer required one hundred percent assistance, though he still needed someone stretching his arm, spotting him on the bench press, and assessing his cardio results before handing him a worksheet of exercises for the day. His trainer, Rufus, was a solidly built dude who'd ended up on the wrong end of a drug kingpin's pair of Malinois, and he knew a thing or two about rigorous physical therapy. And scar tissue.

Mac liked coming in around lunch time because the gym was actually not terribly busy. There were several classes offered during the 10:30-1:30 period, so the weights and treadmills were abandoned for things like HIIT (high intensity interval training), HITT (high intensity tactical training), yoga, and other group activities. Bozer had all but abandoned his previous yoga studio once he'd signed on with Phoenix, so Mac was surprised when he came in and found his bestie circling the wrestling mat instead of in the yoga class, and even more surprised to find his opponent was none other than Patience Keung.

He didn't want to interrupt so he said nothing, hopping on the treadmill to get his heart rate up, but he occasionally threw a glance their way until Rufus wandered up to see his numbers.

"You got attention to spare for someone else, I ain't working you hard enough," the man intoned in his deep voice, and Mac shot him a challenging grin.

"You haven't been working me hard enough for weeks, Rufus."

The man laughed, a low, gravelly sound that reminded Mac very much of Dizzy Gillespie. "Slick, that mouth you got, it's gonna get you in trouble one day."

Rufus proceeded to put him through the wringer – which was exactly what he wanted. The man had to almost sit on his right arm to get it extended enough for Mac to actually grab onto the cable fly on the incline bench, but once they got the scar tissue in his chest a little loosened up, Mac leaned into the weights. At almost five months' in, he needed to break that tissue down before it permanently prevented range of motion.

It didn't hurt all that much, but it looked like it should. Having a guy practically squatting on your chest, putting all his weight on your extended right arm just to get the arm parallel with the floor – well, there was a reason Mac preferred to do his PT without an audience.

And he figured Boze was probably in the gym right now for the same reason, so he kept his eyes to himself and let Rufus literally try to tear the scar tissue in his right pec and rhomboid major apart.

Once they got him good and loosened up, and his range of motion suitably improved, Rufus let him loose on the machines, and eventually Mac couldn't ignore the wrestling mat anymore, and parked himself right in front of it, to do his reps on the pec-deck machine. Bozer gave him a little nod of acknowledgement, but most of his attention was focused on his opponent.

Who was a five foot one-ish Taiwanese tac medic. Bozer was breathing hard, dripping sweat like he was on a ball court. Patience looked like she'd been out for a stroll, and wasn't even shiny. It almost looked like Wilt was squaring off against a junior high schooler.

But Mac had already met her on the mat, so he didn't say a word, wedging his arm into the fly machine handle and letting his chest stretch a moment, just watching.

"You're on offense," the diminutive Taiwanese woman said flatly, as if repeating something she'd already said several times, and Bozer nodded, putting his arms through a couple wide circles.

"I know, I know." Mac knew exactly what his roommate was thinking, so he kept his smile to himself and started his first set of reps. He was two in when Wilt straightened out of his attack position, like he was stretching his back, then leapt for the tac medic. She sidestepped him with ease, ducking an otherwise perfectly thrown right elbow, and obviously intended to nail him on the back but Boze had predicted that and let his failed strike carry him out of range.

"If I had a gun, you'd be dead," she reminded him – again, with the air of someone who'd said it before – and Wilt nodded.

"If you had a gun, I'd be dead a hundred times by now," he panted. "I don't think I'm ready for disarming tactics yet."

"You're not," she informed him, standing flatfooted to let him circle behind her. "Bozer, you're overthinking this. It's simple. Krav maga is about simple tactics that anyone can execute. You're only going to remember thirty percent in the moment. Get in, hurt me, get out."

Mac remembered to breathe through his set, and he watched his best friend go in for a chokehold.

Patience threw her head back – which nailed Bozer in the chest, not the chin because of their height difference – and tried to base and space. It was clear Wilt knew she was going to try it because he'd lowered his own center of gravity, but the attempted headbutt had made him half-ass it, and she was able to get low enough to scoot her hips aside and slap the inside of his right thigh – hard enough that Mac clearly heard it.

Wilt let her go – had she executed that move as it was intended, she would have slapped something much more tender with the same amount of force and he'd be on the ground. Patience turned and gave him a nod. "You know what you did?"

"Didn't come down low enough," Wilt said dully. "I shoulda had my head farther back."

"Yes," she confirmed. "You'll get it."

"Yeah, you keep sayin' that . . ." It was only a mutter, Bozer might not have even realized he'd said it aloud, and Patience's eyes suddenly snapped up and met Mac's.

"You. Hush."

Mac opened his hands on the bars, fingers splayed wide. "Yes ma'am."

"You too, huh?" Bozer muttered, trying to get an angle on Keung again.

"Boze, grappling with an opponent who's got a foot of height difference in either direction is hard," Mac offered, starting his second set. "You're doing great."

It was something all the trainers at Phoenix made agents practice. You never knew who you were going to come up against in the field. Not all bad guys were guys, for one, and were six foot monsters like Jack and Rufus. Some of them were seven foot monsters, like Batuhan Aydin, and no amount of bench pressing would have ever given Mac the strength to repel that combat knife. Matilda Webber was literally half his height, and Aydin got in his hits, but he lost that fight, and he never saw it coming.

They'd all gotten in the ring with short women, Jack included, and Mac had seen way more talented fighters than himself go down, over and over again. If Bozer could hang onto someone like Keung, he could hang onto just about anyone.

"Yeah, well, not great enough," Wilt grumbled, but Mac could tell he was just frustrated with himself. "I gotta get this down."

Mac watched Bozer circle Patience, looking for an opening. "You on a timetable?"

Patience gave Mac half a glare. "He's peacocking."

Wilt suddenly straightened out of fight position, frowning at her. "Really? _Really_?"

Keung didn't even hesitate. She moved in with a series of rapid jabs and crosses, that to his credit, Wilt fended off very well. He did not, however, fend off a mule kick to the right knee, and Patience went through the motions of giving him an elbow to the jaw, a couple knees to the face and chest, and another kick to the boys. Though she was using light contact, she made sure he felt a little pressure, and Wilt rolled onto his side whimpering, curled up in fetal position.

"Really," she confirmed, her arms crossed. "Krav is not about looking cool. It's not showmanship. It's about surviving an encounter. The last move of every combo is getting away safely."

Wilt pouted up at her, clearly not actually injured. "Then how come you always look so bad-ass doin' it?"

Mac couldn't help it. He laughed. "Because she's a bad-ass, Boze," he told his friend, and as the small woman left the mat, Mac held up a hand for a high five, which she gave him.

"I hope Alex appreciates how awesome his mom is," Wilt called after her, and Patience tossed him his towel over her shoulder. "Same time Friday?"

"Same time Friday," she confirmed, and then she was out the door.

Bozer pushed himself into a sitting position on the mat, mopping his face, and Mac powered through the rest of his second set. When he was done, he took a couple deep breaths.

"What's this about peacocking?"

Bozer rolled his eyes. "Look, I know it's stupid but . . . about a month ago, we got into a little, y'know, tussle with the guys we were bringin' in." Wilt wiggled his hands to emphasis how not a big thing it was. "I, uh, I had it handled, y'know, Jack was doin' his thing so I was just treadin' water and waitin' for my moment, an' Captain freakin' America hadda come charging in and 'save me' like the damned damsel -"

Mac leaned back in the machine, stretching his right arm and pec out again. "Captain America?"

"Monnegar," Wilt finally admitted, flicking an imaginary piece of towel lint off his sweaty shirt. "At last Jack'll give me a little cred, you know? Lemme hold my own, but . . . whatever. Told you it was stupid," he mumbled, scrubbing the back of his neck.

Mac shook his head. "It's not stupid to want to improve your skills, Boze. It's – pretty much the exact opposite."

"Naw, I mean, we're good, me an' Tom, we got each other's backs an' all-"

Mac couldn't help but grin as he started his third set of reps. "But you kinda wanna – show him up a little – am I right?"

"Damn right I do, bro!" Bozer confirmed, a little indignantly, then pushed himself to his feet. "So me an' Patience, we kinda spent a lotta time together on the jet, an' I ran into her and Leo again about a month ago. I asked her if she could, y'know, show me a few moves –"

"And now you have – a private trainer," Mac finished for him, trying not to lose his intensity on the last three presses.

"Yeah." Wilt crossed the mat and grabbed Mac's towel from the bench, tossing it his way, and Mac caught it gratefully and toweled his own face before he started wiping the machine down. "I'm try'na keep it on the down low. We were meeting in the evenings, but her son Alex made the volleyball team, so . . . sorry to crash your gym time."

"Well, hey, look who the cat dragged in," a teasing voice called, and both of them snapped to attention as Riley walked in, from the women's locker room entrance. She looked fresh, like she hadn't been in a class yet, and Bozer cocked his head to the side.

"Aren't you supposed to be in-"

"Yoga, with you?" Riley dropped her gym bag on a spare bench, fishing out her water bottle. "Missed class, I was helping Jill series a couple of servers we got on – the last op," she finished vaguely, as she realized who was tangled in the pec-deck machine. "Hey Mac."

Mac gave her a casual two-fingered salute. "Just let me get in twenty minutes of stretching and cardio, and the place is all yours."

She gave him a nod, looking between the two of them curiously. "Uh, you two workout buddies now?"

"No-no," Bozer protested quickly, then pasted on the most un-casual smile imaginable, and Mac closed his mouth and kept wiping down his machine.

Clearly Riley wasn't in on the secret krav maga lessons either.

"I was just, y'know, catchin' up with my boy. Missed the beginning of yoga too, y'know, didn't wanna be 'that guy' crashin' the class-"

"Smooth," Riley complimented him, sarcasm lacing her voice. "It's cool, whatever you're up to, I can come back-"

"Naw, naw, we're done," Bozer confirmed, then held out his hand towards Mac for a fistbump. "Thanks for lettin' me help you out, though, man."

"Yeah, thanks, I appreciate it," Mac agreed quickly, bonking the offered fist. "Like I said, I just gotta cool down and it's all yours, Riles."

Bozer flashed Riley a smile that was fooling no one, though the one she returned was fond, and he retreated to the men's locker room. Mac went out onto the mat to do some quick stretches, and Riley decided to take on the heavy bag. For a few moments, the only sound was breathing, and the slap of kicks against tear-proof webbing.

"So, how're Boze's krav lessons going?" Riley's voice was still tinged with amusement.

"His what?" Mac asked, as if he hadn't heard. She would have had to have passed Agent Keung in the locker room, but it wasn't as if that was necessarily damning –

"He pulled a move yesterday that had Jack slackjawed." The next slap against the bag had some serious power behind it.

Mac climbed to his feet and walked off the mat, bracing his right arm against the main trunk of the pec-deck machine he'd abandoned, and he rotated his body in an effort to bend the limb behind him. It put him facing the heavy bag, and Riley. She sent him a smirk, and he sent it right back.

"Don't know what you're talking about," he called over, pleased that his voice was still a voice. "But glad Boze is kicking ass."

"He really is," Riley told him, and she sounded exactly like a proud older sister.

"What about you?" he called over without thinking, and he wasn't sure she heard him as she landed another devastating kick on the bag. But when she came back down – with perfect form, so Bozer wasn't the only one who'd been putting in time in the last five or so months – her smirk seemed a little darker.

"C'mere and see," she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

Mac chuckled, and held the stretch another few seconds. "Pretty sure you'd wipe the floor with me," he told her, and he watched her walk away from the bag, undoing the Velcro straps on her workout gloves as she did so.

"C'mon, you said stretching and cardio, right? I'm warming up, you're cooling down . . . it'll be fun."

Thinking back, Mac could probably count on one hand the number of times he and Riley had sparred. When she first came on, she trained with Thornton. He'd done the same, and that woman was a certified bad-ass, traitor or not. After she was gone, he was pretty sure Matty had enrolled Riley in the basic agent combat training courses. He'd seen her on the range with Jack, and he knew she was more than capable even at less than point blank range, which he attributed to gaming. Bozer was an un _believable_ shot, despite his abhorrence of firearms, and it probably had a lot to do with his camera work –

And video games. Like it or not, they definitely helped train your reflexes.

"If you wanna practice moves, I'm pretty easy to beat on," Mac admitted, when it was clear she wasn't going to take no for an answer.

"Cool," she replied, and scooped up a pair of punch mitts on her way.

His conversation with Saito was fresh on his mind as she tossed him the pads and he slipped them onto his hands. The only numb places now were along the sides of his fourth fingers and pinkies, but otherwise he had full, normal sensation in his hands. It was the same for his feet; everything but the sides of his fourth and pinkie toes. It was five months out, and even though Dr. Talbot told him not to worry about the number, he couldn't shake the feeling that he might never actually regain – well, _feeling_ – in his fingers and toes. Not completely.

And his fingers weren't exactly his main concern at the moment. It was just the two of them, with something to keep their attention and their hands busy. Perfect time for a hard conversation.

Jack was apparently rubbing off on him, that he thought simulated combat was a good time for a heart to heart.

Mac took his place on the mat, pads at the ready, and Riley grinned at him. "You ready?" she asked, throwing a couple light jabs. He held up the pads, absorbing each hit, and as soon as he recognized the pattern, he adjusted his stance for the next combo. Standard Phoenix combat training drill.

"Probably not," he told her, taking a few swipes at her with the pads when the combo required the attacker to block, deflect, or otherwise dodge, and she followed up with the next combo, hitting a little more like she meant it. "You've been practicing."

"Yeah," she confirmed, dancing around him, and Mac followed her, changing it up for the next combo. "Jack got me into a few classes-" She threw three quick jabs, Mac swiped at her face, she ducked, and followed up with an uppercut and two more jabs. "And Matty hooked me up with a guy she knows."

Mac couldn't keep the surprise off his face. "Hooked up like-" He took a right and then left swipe at her, one dodged and one deflected, and then got ready for a pair of uppercuts. "-private training, or –"

Riley snorted, still smirking, and let him have the rest of the combo. "Dude, I was at your place two nights ago. Don't you think I would have mentioned I was seeing someone?"

"Not if you didn't want to watch Boze go all big brother." Riley changed up her footing, leading now with her left, and Mac glanced around for a tombstone. The next set of combos involved body kicks and the punch mitts he was wearing weren't ideal. "Hang on-"

She didn't. Mac gave ground so her knees would hit the mitts, and not his abs, and he barely got back into position to absorb the two crosses and uppercut she threw his way.

Her smirk hadn't gone anywhere. "That what you call it? Going all big brother?" She danced around him, shaking out her back, and Mac watched her a little more warily this time.

"Are we still talking about-"

"I had a kit done."

By the time his brain unraveled that, she was on him again, and it wasn't a combo Mac recognized. Only his reflexes and training saved him – and the pads, they took most of the force. He did go on the offensive this time, also off script, and her smirk faltered into surprise as well as she was forced to give ground.

Once he'd gotten a little breathing room, Mac backed off the mat and pulled off the pads. "Riley-"

"Oh, we're not done," she told him, no trace of humor in her voice. "Get back over here."

He did, but only because he didn't want their voices to carry. She fell back into position. Mac didn't. He stood there flat-footed, and shook his head at her expectant look. "Riley, I -"

And she threw a punch.

Mac deflected it on instinct, finding himself once again on defense, and he gave her all the ground she wanted.

"Came back negative," she told him, trying and failing to corner him against the wall. "So you can stop feeling guilty about that."

"No. I can't," he told her, pacing the perimeter of the mat to keep out of reach. God knew he deserved every punch she was throwing. Negative? How was that possible -maybe inconclusive, but-

"Oh right, I forgot, _big bro_ ," she snarked, and Mac realized he'd been backed up against the weight machines he'd been using earlier. Knowing what was coming, he debated letting it happen, then decided that wasn't the right play here. When she moved in, he deflected two punches and twisted his hips to avoid a blow to his groin, but instead of giving ground he closed it. He grabbed her knee with his left hand, shoving it across her body, and a palm strike to her breastbone sent her sailing across the mat onto her back.

"Riley, this isn't about how good you are in a fight," he tried, as she hopped back up, cat-like, onto her feet.

"It's not? You're saying you woulda ditched Jack, if it were him and not me?" She came in for a sweep that he barely blocked. She followed it up with a flurry of hits, two of which connected – both to his gut, which he could take – and he chose to fall backwards when she went for his eyes.

Mac rolled away from her, getting square on the mat, but she didn't follow him, and he cautiously stood back up. "They had camera coverage of all the hallways, and you weren't in uniform. We would have been spotted, and one of us had to call for help. That's all."

Riley's head canted to the side. "That's all? That's _all_? Mac, that entire damn ship ran on a network. I could have had that boat in the palm of my hand, and you're saying you _ditched_ me because I wasn't wearing a damn _uniform_?!"

When she repeated it back to him like that, he could see her perspective a lot more clearly. "Riley, I couldn't watch them kill you!" Too late he remembered they were in a gym, where anyone could walk in at any time, and he brought his voice back down to a hoarse whisper. "You were injured and still woozy from the drugs-"

"Yeah, I'm real delicate," she snarled, and then she tackled him.

And she did it well. She went low and she hit him hard, it felt like a linebacker had just buried their shoulder in his stomach. Mac hit the mat so hard his head slammed backwards into the floor, and she took the advantage, putting a knee in his chest and putting him in the same arm lock Jack would have. He slithered out of it the same way he would have with Jack, too, but only barely – she'd gone for his right arm, and he only just had the strength to yank it away as he pivoted his hips.

She went in for a modified chest stomp since she was already crouched, which he caught and had the presence of mind to throw to the side, knocking her off balance, and as he got on all fours he whipped his legs around, trying and succeeding in sweeping her as she tried the same.

But he was still a little stunned from the impact with the mat, and as he tried to get to his feet a wave of lightheadedness nearly sent him back to his knees. She took every advantage, this time putting him in a chokehold, and he was already as low as he could go. Nowhere to base and space. No getting out of it like Patience had.

He tried to throw her over his shoulder, but she was ready for that, too, and her hold was rock solid. He could still breathe, his adam's apple was right in the crook of her elbow, but she was applying more than enough force to cut off the blood flow to his brain.

She meant it.

Tapping out was the obvious move, and Mac decided, also the wrong one. Instead, he reached up, grabbed that hair she hadn't fully secured, and yanked to his right, as hard as he could. She fought him, hissing in his ear, but he got enough of her weight shifted that he rolled them both, pinning her under his back, and twitched his head back in a sharp but restricted headstrike.

She was about six inches shorter, so he caught her lightly in the chin, and it was enough to get that arm around his neck loosened enough to throw off. He sucked in a gasp, riding the head rush of restored circulation, and rolled left.

He should have rolled right.

Mac wasn't actually sure what happened next; he ended up rolling twice, trying to stay ahead of her, but somehow she ended up on top of him, with his head pinned between her thighs and one of his arms trapped under his own body. She had the other – his right – in a wrist lock, and even though he still had his legs, there was no budging her.

"You know what, Mac?" she said breathlessly, as he tried and failed to get leverage. "That night _sucked_. And yeah, I was scared. I really was. But saving people, and beating the bad guys – that feels better than the sucky days suck. And I am _nobody's_ snowflake." She tightened her grip on his head, this time cutting off his air, and the blood pounded in his ears.

As if she knew it, she leaned in closer to make sure he could hear her, and extended that wrist lock far past comfort. "So if you _ever_ ditch me because you think I'm not strong enough to take it, _ever_ again, I will go find a team that's gonna take me seriously."

Mac stared up at her, fighting for air, surprised that her words and the fury in her eyes could be so crystal clear when everything else was so fuzzy. There was no getting out of the hold and he knew it, but he didn't have a hand to tap out with, so he pounded one of his feet on the mat, twice.

She held him another three or four seconds, he was tempted to try tapping out again when she let him up, and rose smoothly to her feet while he coughed.

"I'll take that rematch anytime," she offered, her voice perfectly normal and friendly like nothing unusual had happened. Then she turned and walked off the mat.

Mac lay on his back, with his left arm still trapped beneath him, just trying to catch his breath, and the only sound after that was the door swinging open to the women's locker room.

-M-

If the last chapter was fast, this was pretty much warp speed. Hope you hung on!

So we started this bad boy with Mac having just gotten the skinny on the op, top to bottom. Jack wasn't about to let Mac take responsibility like he did during the first Turkey Day, but Mac knew something Jack didn't, and couldn't tell him. Then we had a little 'snake surprise' in which Saito and John stop by, and after a few hard questions from Saito, Mac gets a few more hard questions from Riley.

The 'snake surprise' has to do with Saito and Mac's first meeting, in which Mac saved Saito from an inland taipan bite using a Land Rover. It was established as a throwaway line in the first Turkey Day, but then someone asked for it as a Christmas present, so that origin story will be published as a **Trimming** as soon as this monster is done.

Speaking of this monster being done, it should be obvious from that conversation with Jack what had scared Mac so much. It was one of Parson's basic four fears, specifically loss of Ego. I think Mac would be most afraid that he'd permanently lost a piece of himself.

 _Not me._

Follow me on this one and see if you agree. The thing that bothered Mac so deeply was that he gave up. He gave up on the boat because he thought he couldn't recover from the injury, and he didn't want to be conscious when he died. Then every time he woke up thereafter, he thought he was regaining consciousness still in that same situation, and _every time_ he wished he would just hurry up and die, because he couldn't face the pain and the struggle, and he didn't want to be aware when he lost the fight.

Fearing pain is a fear I totally get, but it wasn't that it was going to hurt – it was that it wasn't ever going to stop hurting. He wouldn't be the same anymore. He wouldn't be him anymore. He'd be a damaged, lesser version. Whether that was pain or brain or physical, he had been altered against his will and in a negative way. After someone has been in a really bad wreck, they're not the same. They can't always do the same things the same way. Honestly, even as we age we don't heal as well, our body changes and people often say they "don't feel like themselves."

So I thought that after Mac boiled down all his fears – the fear that he was crippled, the fear that he wasn't capable anymore, the fear that he had failed and couldn't fix it, the fear that he wasn't smart anymore – it all came down to not himself anymore.

Now, one of you guessed correctly – **I'mcalledZorro**! But she also got two guesses. =) But hey, everyone had as many guesses as they wanted, and no one else took advantage, so . . . **I'mcalledZorro** is the winner! I'll PM you to find out what you want to see in this story before it's all over!


	40. Chapter 40

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own any of these characters, please don't sue.

 **Content Warning** : Super mild tearkjerk warning.

-M-

"So what's the word?"

Matty didn't take her eyes off the screen, where two Phoenix tac teams were about to breach a large warehouse. "Jack. I don't remember assigning you to this op."

He let himself in; she knew it by the quiet click of the door closing, and the slightest puff of air that reached her, standing almost directly in the middle of the room. Still, he didn't say anything, and she rolled her eyes. "Are you seriously trying to sneak up on me?"

". . . no . . ." The slightly guilty voice was significantly closer than the door. "I know you got eyes in the back of your head."

"Then you can see them glaring at you. Scram."

". . . is that a Wal-Mart . . .?"

She suppressed a second eyeroll; her head already hurt enough. "Supply chain warehouse that they divested eight months ago, but wouldn't you know it's still actively sending trucks all over the Midwest."

"No way," Jack murmured, coming to stand abreast of her as the tac teams moved in. The map showed the warehouse was filled with warm bodies, that immediately started streaming away from the breach points.

"Hittin' 'em in broad daylight? Where is that, Nebraska?"

"Yes. Tango team got all the data evidence last night. We're breaching now because Ms. Trans decided to make a surprise stop to see how her clothing line was being distributed."

The com in her ear was giving her audio, and when Jack settled into the world's most disgraceful parade rest beside her, she gave up and sent it through the room speakers, making sure the mics were on mute. Bravo and Tango did not need the kind of distraction Jack was going to be so generously providing her.

". . . so we're bustin' Wal-mart's competition?"

"Yes, Jack. I'm very offended by her line of fall activewear," Matty confessed, her voice laced with sarcasm. "The majority of those people are innocent civilians who believe they're actually working for the big chain, when what they're actually doing is facilitating the Trans' opioid empire."

She heard Jack snort. "Fentanyl and yoga pants kinda go together. I woulda loved some after a few workouts myself . . ."

"Mmm. Pretty sure your boy wouldn't say no to a hit," she remarked, shifting her focus to the helmet cams as the teams raced to find Ms. Trans.

"Rough PT?"

"You'd have to ask his physical therapy partner," she responded cryptically, scanning the feeds. Still no Ms. Trans.

Was there some section of the warehouse not on the schematics . . . ? She should have been in the supervisor's office, but Tango had just cleared it and the only thing there was the woman's purse. And 'purse' was being generous. Duffle bag would have been more appropriate.

Well, perhaps 'weekend bag' . . .

Ignoring Jack's inquiry entirely, Matty tapped her coms. "Bravo, I want you to hold that perimeter, do not let _any_ civilians leave the immediate area. I think 'Mizz' Trans just lived up to her surname."

She expected some variation on a theme of 'dude looks like a lady' from Jack, but he seemed more fixated on his partner than some gender-swapping lowlife. "Rufus knows his stuff."

Matty suppressed a smirk. "You trying to reassure me or yourself, Jack?" Rather than keep him on a line, as enjoyable as it was, she did need to keep an eye on the op. "If I were you, I'd ask Mizz Davis."

The majority of the civilians were either under control, or completely outside the warehouse and getting rounded up in the loading dock area. But satellite had two heat signatures scuttling along behind a neat row of trailers. "Bravo, you've got two bogies to the east, hiding out in the tractor trailers."

"Yes ma'am, we see them," one of her operators replied, and sure enough two of Bravo team peeled off to intercept.

"So Riles and Mac had a little chat, eh?" Without looking at Jack, she could tell he was grinning. And she could tell he was worried.

Matty gave an eloquent shrug. "I don't know." They didn't have cameras in the gym, for obvious reasons. "What I can tell you is that Riley entered the gym and left it roughly thirteen minutes later, and it took Mac a good ten after that to limp his way out. Since he was still mostly upright, I'm assuming it went about as well as could be expected."

There were cameras at the entrances to the locker rooms, which showed only who was entering and exiting. It was pure speculation on her part that Riley had left the locker room and entered the gym at all. But she knew she was right based on the set of her girl's shoulders when she'd left, and the conflicted expression on her face.

Regardless of whether Mac ever came back in a field agent capacity, that conversation was long overdue, and she was glad Riley had taken the opportunity. Near as she could tell, they'd been dancing around each other for months. The moment she'd heard Mac's debrief, Matty knew Mac had his suspicions. Of the several things he'd forgotten, of course his luck wouldn't allow it to be something he really ought to.

Riley was coming to terms with it, but Matty knew MacGyver never would. She'd been that agent, listening from another cell. All that memory ever left you with was disgust and helplessness. Even with all her training, she had a hard time converting those feelings into anything but fury and a deep desire to inflict revenge.

If you couldn't use a memory, couldn't learn from it, couldn't leverage it to become better, it was just baggage. If Matty had the power to take it away - and give him back his mother - she'd do it in a heartbeat.

Jack didn't say anything else as Bravo neatly boxed the two runaways in and took them into custody. Sure enough, a thin-faced Asian man with short, choppy black hair turned out to be a thin-faced Asian woman wearing a uniform and wig.

"Good job, Tango, Bravo. We've already sent in a cleaner team. Hold security on site until the FBI take control of the scene."

"Copy."

Matty eyed the satellite footage once more, but the caravans heading in from the east, north, and west were all tagged friendlies. That was more than enough firepower to repel any attempt by Trans' forces to retake the warehouse. "If you'll excuse me, Dalton, I need to go prep for a lovely chat with my least favorite amateur fashionista."

"You talk to Mac about comin' back yet?"

Matty shifted her focus from the op clean-up to the agent parked beside her. Jack was still standing there quite casually, looking and sounded relatively unconcerned. Matty knew better.

"Mac is on extended short term disability for as long as he needs." Which wasn't anything Jack didn't already know, and he frowned at her, like he was truly disappointed she was making him work for it.

"He ain't disabled."

"That's for him to decide," Matty told Jack firmly, stepping around him to grab her tablet.

"Actually, it's for his doctors to decide, and they have," Jack drawled, a little note of warning in his voice. "He's good, Matty. Ain't lost a memory since he woke up in the spook house. Night terrors are gettin' better, pretty sure he'd pass the physical right now even if Riles did knock him around a little."

She was well aware of Mac's progress, and she knew Jack knew that, and further, that was the point he was trying so clumsily to make. "Yes, Jack, except for the fact that he sometimes thinks he ate breakfast, and _then_ he cooked it, he's fine."

But the truth was, he hadn't had difficulty putting his memories in the correct chronological order in months. Nearly all of the initial neurological issues were resolved, really it was just that looping trauma and even she wasn't whole-heartedly convinced he would still react the way he had in the hospital if they took his Fitbit away. Dr. Talbot had already told her they were pre-empting _any_ REM cycle that looked even slightly klugy, and even normal people had a few iffy ones if they had so much as an extra glass of wine before bed. Mac still had a few nerve-related issues in his hands and feet, but nothing that an agent who'd gotten shot wouldn't be dealing with, and nothing that prevented any normal day to day activity.

Honestly, she could probably put him in a lab right now, and he'd be just fine.

"Matty –"

"Jack, it's _his decision_ ," she repeated, in a tone that indicated the conversation was over. "When he's ready, _if_ that day comes, he can submit the request. If you're asking if he's done that, the answer is no." She heard Jack take a preparatory breath, so she turned on her heels and pre-empted him.

"Remind me, after Nikki Carpenter was supposedly KIA, how much time did Mac take off?"

She knew. Down to the day. And she knew Jack knew, because Thornton had kept tabs on both of them, and been kind enough to leave the records for her to find when she took over. Jack narrowed his eyes, then frowned more deeply, and shifted his weight to his right foot. His dominant foot. One of his many tells.

"-hey, that bullet damn near clipped his heart-"

"Three months, Jack. He was running 5Ks for fun every morning for weeks before Thornton brought him in to track down that virus," Matty cut him off flatly. "He needed the time. And I don't recall seeing any records that you were pushing for Mac's return to work. It appears you gave him all the time he needed."

"That was different."

"Yeah, it was," she agreed. "It wasn't half as bad as this. He had a broken heart and a heaping helping of failure. Failure to complete a mission, failure to protect not only a teammate, but a lover. This time his teammate's not dead, she's kicking his ass all over the gym. And it's not his heart that's broken, is it."

A little cinder of anger smoldered in Jack's gaze. "He ain't broken, Matty. Not by a country mile. And I don't think waiting him out's the right play here. He's gotta know we've got confidence in him -"

"Do we?" she cut him off, her voice sharp. "Do we, Jack? You'd take him on your next op, as is, tomorrow?"

"Hell yes," Jack responded without hesitation.

Matty flashed him a humorless smile. "He's not ready and you know it. If he went out now, he wouldn't come back."

"I would bring him back," Jack bit out, enunciating every word. "As many times as it took. What happened to gettin' back on the horse?"

Riley's crisis of confidence, shooting the Organization's man in the data center, that had been a lot easier to manage. Taking a life was always hard, particularly when it was utterly unexpected. This time, it had been harder, but she was bouncing back. Resilient. Finding a way to make the memory – or lack thereof – work for her. Turning horror into something productive, something helpful.

What was going on with Mac right now, that was an entirely different animal.

"Getting back on the horse is only necessary if you still want to ride," Matty told him, perhaps more heavily than she meant to. "And right now Mac doesn't know if he wants to."

And neither did she. The urge to put him in a lab, protect him, hell, assign a second Dalton to him was hard for her to ignore. He didn't need to be a field agent to save the world. To do good. To support his team, to make them successful, and all from the safety of the building. What they had almost lost was so much more than an agent, a partner, a roommate, a friend.

There was no one else like Angus MacGyver, and maybe it _shouldn't_ be up to him.

Maybe Jack saw it on her face, maybe not. His deadly look didn't go anywhere. "Him and me, we're a package deal," Jack told her, quietly but no less intensely.

"I know," Matty replied, in exactly the same tone. "Why do you think I had you add _two_ agents to the team?"

-M-

 **TWO WEEKS LATER**

"So, are we gonna start recognizing Düsseldorf Day?"

There was a collective groan from the people gathered around the fire pit, and a wadded up napkin sailed towards the offending person, who batted it away, half-laughing. "I'm just sayin', you two have Cairo Day, and this had to be way worse-"

"Cairo Day is sacred, man. Sacred." Jack, who had thrown the napkin, had picked up his beer, and was gesturing with it. "We recognize Cairo Day as a celebration of still bein' alive, that's why."

Bozer stared at him incredulously, then made a production of crumpling his own napkin, and throwing it back. "And why the hell wouldn't we do that for Düsseldorf Day?!"

"Because you didn't almost die," Jack told him, as if it was painfully obvious. "Plus it just sounds dumb." He spread his arms grandly. "Cairo Day." Then he huddled in on himself and pitched his voice to be high and whiny. "Düsseldorf Day! See the difference there? With Cairo, you got, like, sarcophaguseses and mummies and djinn-"

He turned to get support from his partner, but Mac couldn't give it to him. He was pretty sure he was making a face.

"The plural of 'sarcophagus' is 'sarcophagi', for one, and there was no djinn-"

"I bet there was, homie, that's how that – you know, the thing – it ended up in my pocket-"

"What ended up in your pocket?" Bozer pounced, eyes wide, and Jack shook the beer at him again.

"Oh no. We don't talk about Cairo Day. Ever."

On Bozer's right, Riley rolled her eyes. "You know, for being a thing you never talk about, you sure talk about it a lot . . ."

Mac snorted with laughter, trying to school his expression when Jack shot him a feigned hurt look. "She's right, Jack. You bring it up a lot."

"Well, that's just because you chowderheads keep tryin'a one-up it," he defended. "Swear to God Monnegar thought I was just makin' shit up. Riley, you and the damn crocodile – and you, Boze, I am never settin' a rocket launcher within arm's length of you, _ever_ again."

Everyone was laughing by this point, and Mac finished off his beer with a smirk. "What's this about a rocket launcher?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Oh, no, homie, I already know not to give _you_ a toy like that," Jack cut him off. "Hell, you'd take it apart and make, like, a panini press out of it –"

"But it was super fun," Bozer confessed across the fire. "Like, _super_ fun."

Content to get the details of that little escapade after everyone else was gone, Mac cast a quick look around the deck. "Where are Tom and Alicia, anyway?"

"Why, you think they'd dish out the dirt?"

Mac shrugged. "Maybe." They hadn't seemed shy the last few times they'd come over, and Mac honestly liked them both.

"Tom's brother is in town," Riley supplied. "Alicia is supporting his cover." Mac cocked his head a little, trying to work out precisely what that meant, and Riley shot him a dirty grin. "Not like that, Mac."

He held up his hands. "Hey, I'm not throwing stones." He gave his best friend a nod, and Bozer raised his beer.

"Hear, hear. And I mean that literally. Here," he repeated, shaking what was obviously an empty bottle. "Anybody need a refill?"

Mac stood and handed over his empty as Bozer gestured for it, and handed over Jack's as well, when it was thrust into his hand. "Need help?"

"Nah, it's all good. Besides, time I broke out the good stuff."

"Mmmm," Jack hummed, wiggling his eyebrows. "I think I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down, dawg." He slapped Mac on the back as he stood and hopped up out of the fire pit, following Bozer towards the kitchen, undoubtedly to 'help' break out the homemade Moose Munch.

Mac was still smiling when his eyes naturally fell on the person who was sitting exactly opposite him, over the fire. Watching him.

He left the smile on his face. "So they're still working out?"

"Tom and Alicia?" she clarified. "Yeah. I mean, Boze is still Boze, but yeah." She hesitated. "Look, we're not trying to keep secrets-"

"I know," he assured her, coming around the pit to stand beside her. No point in raising their voices to talk over it, particularly with his as hoarse as it still was. "It's protocol. It doesn't bother me at all."

The simple fact was, he wasn't an agent. What his team was doing – _the_ team was doing – he still got enough bits and pieces to know they were okay.

Also, Bozer really had never grasped the whole 'you can't tell anyone you're a secret agent' concept of being a secret agent, so Mac knew a lot more about their ops that he ought to. Something he was sure Matty knew, and if she had a problem with it, she would say something about it.

Which to his knowledge, she hadn't. She hadn't come to visit them in any of their evening gatherings since Amsterdam – since 'Düsseldorf Day' – and Mac felt a little guilty that he was the reason she was distancing herself somewhat from the rest of the team. The recently embattled director of a covert intelligence agency couldn't be seen fraternizing with her agents. Particularly not the one who caused all the trouble in the first place.

 _Well, technically that would be Riley_ , his brain pointed out, and Mac frowned at it. Only mentally, he thought, until Riley's expression also fell.

"Convincing," she teased him, but it was more than half serious. "Look, if it's bothering you, we can lay off –"

"That's not what's bothering me," he confessed, then glanced back at the house. No shadows in sight. – Jack and Bozer were obviously still in the kitchen. Which was good, since Matty wasn't the only one distancing herself from him, and this moment marked the first time in two weeks he'd gotten an opportunity to speak to Riley in relative isolation. He turned back in time to catch the tail end of the once-over Riley was giving him. Without another word, she stepped out of the fire pit and walked towards the deck railing, and the brightly lit skyline of LA. When it became clear she was not retreating and in fact expected him to follow, he did, glancing over the rails before propping a hip against them, and facing her.

"Are you going to hit me again?" He was only half-joking.

"I guess that depends on you," she told him, without a trace of apology. It made him smile.

"I've been thinking about what you said. And what you didn't." Motion in his peripheral vision caused them both to glance back towards the house, but it was just Jack crossing the living room – probably headed for the bathroom. Mac turned back to her, keeping his voice soft. "And you were right. All of it. You're right."

She didn't say a word, watching him with an inscrutable look. Since it wasn't an uppercut, he decided that was permission to continue. "On the boat. I knew how close it could get, and I was afraid that you'd be caught again. Not because you're not capable and competent," he added hastily, "but because _I_ couldn't handle the thought of it. Riley, that was never about you."

Her eyebrows shot to her hairline. "It's not you, it's me? Really?" she asked him drily, and Mac winced a little, then rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"After they caught me, they dragged me into the lobby. Hakan asked where you were, but he already knew. He knew because he knew _me_ , Riley. Not because he knew you. And I told him that, told both him and the colonel that the one they'd underestimated, it was you, and they would live to regret it."

Riley's expression shifted, then, and she tucked her hands into her back pockets. "Not for long they didn't."

"No," Mac agreed soberly. "Even if I never made it off that boat, I knew you'd get them. Riley, I never meant to give you the impression that I don't trust you, that I don't value you, that you're less than. You're _extraordinary_. Intelligent. Intuitive. I knew it from the moment I met you. You're an _incredible_ agent, and you're right. You're no one's snowflake. Riley, they didn't take you because you're the weak link. They took you because they _had_ to take you first, or you would have stopped them in their tracks."

Riley took her time replying. "I know that."

"Good. Good," he repeated, and he meant it. "And I hope you know that I'm sorry. You're right, I should have followed you up that ladder, or we should have tried to take the boat together. If it had been Jack, I wouldn't have hesitated. I did because . . . I knew I couldn't protect you. And I couldn't face the idea of . . . of you being hurt again. Even though I know you could handle it. You did handle it. I . . . you're right. I know you're tough and I know you can hold you own, but I'm not treating you that way, am I."

Riley was silent, her dark eyes bright.

God, he was such a dumbass sometimes. "They painted you as a victim, Riley, and I bought in. That was incredibly stupid. _And_ selfish. I played right into his hand, and I almost lost – everyone."

"Yeah, well, Hakan was pretty good at manipulating people."

Understatement of the year. "Particularly me," Mac admitted quietly. "It won't happen again, Riley. You have my word."

Riley rolled her eyes upward, ostensibly to think it through. "So . . . the next time I get kidnapped and you get proof of life, you're just gonna . . . what. Leave me there?"

Mac chuckled. "No, I'll probably just wait ten minutes for you to call me back from the same phone, with the bad guys in custody, and I'll give you exfil coordinates."

"Wow. So now I'm Black Widow?"

"If the shoe fits . . ." Too late he realized that was a Cinderella reference, which was the worst possible comparison he could make – _hey, Riley, you might not be a snowflake, but how about a Disney princess?_ \- but he hoped she'd overlook it.

And Riley smiled, real and raw and vulnerable. "I wasn't raised in a creepy Russian assassin school."

"Nobody's perfect." _Least of all me._ Then he schooled his expression into something more serious. More earnest. "I will always be there if you need me, Ri. I'll probably be there even if you don't," he added casually. "That is, if I get back agent status. Since we're on the same team . . ."

At that her smile broadened. "You're coming back? Officially?"

Mac nodded. "Submitted the request today." Abruptly he found himself with an armful of Riley Davis. It _definitely_ wasn't the worst possible outcome, and he hugged her back.

"That's – that's great," she managed, squeezing him tight before she let him go, and Mac gave her that same vulnerable smile.

"We'll see." There were still some major hurdles to overcome, and there was no telling just how high up the chain that request would go before it could be approved.

"Awww. You finally stopped foolin' around an' decided to come back to work?" a teasing drawl came from the firepit, and both of them turned to find Jack and Bozer watching them, with matching smirks. "It was the rocket launcher, wasn't it."

"Yeah, he's just jealous," Bozer agreed, plopping down a couple of already opened beers and a big bowl of dark chocolate-covered popcorn. Mac made a show of thinking it over before he visually agreed, and the four of them reconvened around the fire pit, beers in hand.

"Well, here's to you, bud," Jack toasted, with a wink to his partner. "Düsseldorf Day aside – and that's a terrible idea, Boze, it really is – I didn't know if we'd ever have this again. Just the four of us, drinkin' beers by the fire pit. But it's somethin' we'll always have, Mac, no matter how this shakes out. You ain't the job. You're family, and we aren't goin' anywhere. You're stuck with us."

"Preach, brotha," Bozer hooted loudly.

Riley was a bit more reserved. "And if it really matters that much to you, I could always boopity boop it," she offered, intentionally using Jack's favorite term for describing anything she did with computers.

Rather than be overcome with gratitude and really embarrass himself, Mac settled for quietly laughing. "Thanks guys. I appreciate it, but no boopity-booping required. Seriously," he added, making eye contact just to be sure.

Riley gave him a mock offended look. "What, you think I'd get caught?" She raised her bottle. "To Mac."

"To Mac!" the others chorused, and, now thoroughly embarrassed despite his best efforts, Mac took a sip of his beer.

"Aww, lookit those li'l ears turn red!" Bozer crowed, nudging his shoulder playfully. "Haven't seen you so verklempt since you asked –"

Mac threw his arm around his friend, more in an attempt to put him in a headlock than anything else, and Bozer squirmed away, still laughing as both their beers spilled a little on the deck.

Everything - the laughter, the rough-housing, the popcorn, even the view was almost too much, and Mac settled himself back on the deck, avoiding the spillage and using it as an excuse not to look at any of them too closely. He'd gotten a much better handle on his emotions in the past few months, but it was like part of the levy had been permanently undermined, and every so often a wave would slap over, and he'd get unexpected swept off his feet.

 _Definitely_ something he'd have to get a better handle on if he expected to recertify.

Somehow intuitively knowing he needed a second, the team started up some friendly bickering, and Mac tuned them out for a moment and focused on that feeling. Gratitude, relief, love – it was too complicated for one label. And like he'd practiced, over and over again in the last five months, he let himself feel it. Acknowledged it.

He remembered sinking in darkness, wanting one more chance. One more mouthful of Bozer's waffles. One more evening just like this one, laughing and roughhousing and drinking beer. One more chance to tell Riley how awesome she was. Tell Bozer how proud he was of the agent he was growing into. Tell them all how much they meant to him.

Tell them he loved them.

But he couldn't. There was no way he could say those words right now without completely losing it, and he wasn't about to put a damper on the night like that. He knew they knew, he knew he didn't have to tell them, but he remembered the regret he'd felt, as he sank into that black. Regret for not telling them. Regret for not saying it out loud.

He should be able to say it out loud.

He set down his beer and worked the problem, then fished around in the thigh pocket of his cargo shorts. It was there, it was always there, he kept it on him in the same way he knew Jack was carrying a bullet right now. Not that it was precious, not that he needed the reminder, but sometimes it was nice to put his hand in his pocket and feel it there.

There in his pocket. A physical thing that fit in the palm of his hand. Not some overwhelming, noncorporeal menace lurking just outside his field of vision. This thing, that terrified him so much, it wasn't so big and awful. It was tiny. Delicate, even. It weighed less than a gram.

Then again, there were a _lot_ of things in the world that could kill you and weighed less than a gram.

Mac pulled the folded slip of paper out of his pocket, and he stared at it a long time. The animated conversation around him gradually died down, until they were all quiet. It wasn't an awkward silence, no one was staring at him. Each person was settled comfortably in their own thoughts.

"That's it, huh." Bozer finally broke the silence, staring not at Mac, nor the piece of paper, but at the fire.

"Yep." Mac turned it in his hands, over and over, marveling that in all this time, he hadn't ever opened it and looked. He wasn't even sure his handwriting had been legible.

Near as he knew, no one had ever looked at it. Had ever opened it up. Not Parsons, not Jack. It was still his secret.

Mac took a deep, slow breath, and then he stood up, and placed the paper deliberately into the fire. It caught instantly, and even as it burned and squirmed, it never opened. In seconds it was as black as the darkness he'd been sinking into.

Feeling somehow lighter – and technically he was, even if it by was less than a gram – Mac retook his seat and recovered his beer.

"Didn't need it anymore?" Jack asked him lightly, from across the fire.

Mac paused a second, then shook his head and took a swig. "Nope," he replied, after he swallowed.

"What did it say?" There was only curiosity in Bozer's voice. No judgement.

That was easy. "Nothing relevant," Mac told him, with the beginnings of a smile. "You three just blew it out of the water."

"Tattnall class destroyer," Jack guessed immediately.

Riley snapped her fingers. "Container ship full of stolen military-grade weapons."

"Super fast speed boat you tweaked a liiiiittle too tight?" Bozer waggled his eyebrows, and Mac couldn't help it. He laughed.

And it actually was a laugh. It was light and warm and everything he needed to tell them.

"It's like you know me." When the chuckling subsided, Mac took another sip of his beer, savoring the taste. Using it to embed this memory, this moment, so deeply in his brain that nothing could ever break its anchor. "Thank you," he told them, raising his voice so he could be sure they heard him. "I love you too."

Jack grinned broadly – and then immediately went for the distraction he knew Mac needed. "Awww. You're just sayin' that so we stop askin' what was on that little slip of paper."

"Bet we could get his doc to cough it up." But then a doubtful look crossed his roommate's face. "Actually, I bet even Matty couldn't get it outta that broad. No offense to Dr. Parsons, man, like, she's obviously a great doc, but . . ." He whistled.

Beside Mac, Riley gave an indelicate snort. "She's definitely a piece of work. Do you know what she said to me? She covered for me with her tech guys, and then she basically told me-" Riley stopped abruptly, and Mac watched her eyes widen in dawning comprehension.

"Well don't leave us hangin'," Jack prompted impatiently, and Riley stared at them all like she'd just swallowed a bug.

"She manipulated me." Her voice was a mix of surprise and outrage. "I didn't –" Then she shot Jack a look. "She basically told me I fucked up, but it didn't make me a fuck-up, and that I needed to make sure he knew that –" And then she turned and looked back at Mac.

He felt his eyebrows draw together. "That I fucked up?" he supplied with a smile. "I seem to remember you passing that along."

She shook her head impatiently. "No, I – well, yeah –"

"She did the same thing to me," Bozer admitted, on Mac's other side. "Not that I was a fuck-up. Said I needed to make sure he got a clean start. No expectations. Just let 'im – let him be him. Which I've been tryin'a do. Give him his space, y'know, not make comparisons between pre and post Düsseldorf Day."

Mac looked between the two of them. "Uh . . . _he's_ sitting right here-"

Across from them, Jack chuckled, deep in his chest, and all eyes flicked to him. He was shaking his head.

"She played us all like a cheap fiddle," he declared with a laugh. "When I showed up as part of your escort outta there, before we picked you up she took me aside and told me to stay away from you, that hoverin' would only remind you of what you lost. She knew you hadn't lost anything, she had to've, but I didn't. It's why I been so hands off. With all of you," he added, giving Riley and then Bozer significant looks. "I tried to stay outta your hair, wait for you to come to me when you wanted to talk."

Hands off when he wouldn't have normally been. And honestly, not having Jack stuck to his ass twenty-four seven over the past five months had been a godsend. It had been a little lonely, sure, but frankly he'd needed the time to think. To unpack it all and actually deal with it instead of packing it right back up again. To stop feeling guilty long enough to start feeling something else.

And now that Boze mentioned it, he hadn't once compared Mac's recovery to any previous injury. Never set any expectations that he had to accomplish anything by a certain date, that he was doing better or worse than he should. Never assumed he wanted to do any of his old hobbies or eat any of his old favorites, either, he'd always asked, and done it freely, never pressuring him. Never even using comparisons to encourage him. He'd just been –

Encouraging. There if Mac needed him, whatever he needed.

And Riley had been pretty damn clear on the difference between fucking up, and being a fuck-up. A reminder he'd sorely needed once he'd gotten all the details on the op.

Dr. Parsons had told all of them – not just him, but his team – exactly what they needed to hear to make them behave a certain way. The way she knew he'd need them to in order to heal.

And in doing so, also giving them a path to healing themselves. To dealing with their own grief and their own guilt.

Mac was pretty sure his expression mirrored Riley's. "So she didn't just analyze me. She analyzed all of you -"

"And she made us her damn puppets, to do what she couldn't once you left," Jack added.

"So he wouldn't end up like Howard," Riley finished. "Holy shit."

Mac looked between them all, suddenly completely lost. ". . . okay . . . who's Howard?"

Bozer clapped him on the shoulder. ". . . you, bro. Howard's you."

That answer was not enlightening, so Mac looked to Jack for clues. The other man was shaking his head in wonder.

"Not him," he contradicted, his voice thick. "That's the whole point."

-M-

 **ONE MONTH LATER**

"Director."

Matty was buried in her tablet as usual, but she motioned for him to enter. "Come on in, Mac, and close the door."

Mac did so, eyeing the empty hallway and the lack of anyone else in the room. At least the windows weren't frosted. It was something, anyway.

He went ahead and approached, stopping in the middle of the room behind the coffee table, and showed zero interest in the bowl of paperclips that was still there. Bozer had revealed it hadn't gone anywhere when he admitted to Mac, months ago, that he always took one and put it in his pocket, so a piece of Mac was on every mission with them. He also personally celebrated all the times he was able to use the paperclip, more than half of which Mac thought were pretty unlikely.

"How are you feeling?" Matty asked, her voice sounding slightly distracted. Mac suppressed a smirk.

"I'm find, Matty. How are you?"

He watched for a hint of smile from her, but he didn't get it. Her eyes were still fixed on the tablet. "Wondering why one of my labs managed to exhaust all its chemical _and_ biological protective counteragents in the same morning."

A very reasonable question. He almost told her so. "Well, as you know we're working with a compound that has several remarkably biologic characteristics, including an apparent inclination to mutate into a form that is able to break containment when a certain mass of it is created."

Finally he got her eyes, dark and not terribly impressed, in a face that conveyed much the same. "You dropped a petri dish full of an engineered material that can eat through any petroleum based plastic." And sure enough, on the screen behind her, lab footage popped up, showing something that looked very much like the scenario she had described. Three technicians covered head to toe in yellow protective suits were all working in the lab, when one of them collected a petri dish to cross to another bench. His back was to the camera, but it picked up the glass hitting the ground, the figure flinching back, then racing to one of the room columns and slapping a big red button. The footage was then lost as clouds of white extinguishing gas showered down from the ceiling amid eerie red flashes from the containment alarm.

He knew she was just waiting for him to contradict her description of the event, and he knew the outcome would be an argument, so he had the good sense not to do it.

For four seconds. "I didn't drop it so much as underestimate the breakdown of the structural integrity of the container, which had degraded beyond the shear point of supporting itself –"

Matty held up a hand. "Stow it, Boy Wonder. Are you _certain_ the compound was successfully contained?"

That he could answer definitively. "Yes," he assured her with a nod.

"Great. At least I don't have to worry about the building falling down around our ears," she quipped, with less sarcasm than he was hoping. She was definitely not in the mood to play. "Have you updated the after-incident lab safety protocols?"

"And trained all the staff. That scenario will not happen again." Not unless every one of twelve new protocols were completely ignored. That was not a compound – or maybe organism – that could ever be let loose into the wild. The effects would be incalculably devastating to human civilization.

Although, if properly modified, would also solve a great many current pollution issues due to said human civilization.

Matty sniffed. "See that it doesn't." Her tone wasn't necessarily dismissive, but she didn't follow it up with any further comments, and after a few seconds, Mac decided to take the initiative.

"Matty, while I have you, is there any update on my field agent recertification request?"

If the question surprised her, she gave nothing away. "You've only been back in the lab for two and a half weeks, Mac, and you very nearly ended civilization as we know it. Not dangerous enough for you?"

He didn't answer, and her eyes narrowed as she gave him more of her attention. "Your application to return to field work was denied."

Mac found that he had absolutely zero emotional reaction to that statement. He'd already predicted it would be a fight. "If I may-"

"You may not," she cut him off flatly. "It was determined you're psychologically unfit for field work."

That bought him up short. Mac stared at her a moment, then raised his eyes to the footage, paused, of the lab undergoing chemical and biologic containment. "You have an example of my psychological state up on the screen behind you. If that reaction doesn't prove I'm still capable of making the correct decision under pressure-"

"It's your decision making – your judgement - that I question." Finally, Matty put aside the tablet – only after using it to frost the glass - and approached him, cocking her head. "Have a seat, Mac."

He did so, a little reluctantly, and she gave him a bright, entirely phony smile. "Let's take a look at a few of those decisions, shall we? You came into this room six months ago and told me you had been compromised. And then you got on a plane and flew to an allied country and managed to release a war criminal entirely on your own initiative. A man as brilliant and resourceful as that couldn't find a way to _ask_ me for direction, or at least better communicate your plan, instead of doing whatever you wanted?"

Mac blinked at her, not quite sure if she wanted him to actually answer her. She didn't. "Mac, you're damaged goods. _Literally_. And you had _dozens_ of opportunities to change that outcome. You could have brought me in immediately – you were in this building for hours that morning and I can think of half a dozen signals you could have sent up that would have been invisible to them. You knew better than to stay on that ship, and certainly after you realized you were so outnumbered. We lost four agents the last time we had to go rescue you, and you already have a history of coughing up intelligence to Aydin's men. If they had kept hands on you, you would have told them anything they wanted to know."

Hearing that his request had been denied hadn't made him feel anything, but that certainly did. Mac unclenched his jaw. "I'm aware of the –"

"Are you?" she challenged. "Are you really, Mac? Because Oversight barely let you regain agent status the _last_ time. I put my career and my life on the line for you. Right now you should be huddling in a black site so black even I don't know it exists. Letting Colonel Aydin escape back to Turkey would have resulted in a civil war that _at best_ would have left thousands dead and millions displaced. The first time was an honest mistake, but this? Mac, this time you were beyond reckless, beyond even stupid. The Phoenix can't afford it. And frankly, neither can you."

She took a second to breathe, still pinning him with a look he'd never seen on her face –

That wasn't right. He'd seen that look before. Just never pointed at him.

"Forget dying. You were almost a _vegetable_ , MacGyver. Have you put any thought into what that existence would have been like? What that would have done to the rest of us? Your team? Your family? You are walking and talking through absolutely no action or good judgement of your own. I had hoped when I handed you your medical record that you would recognize the extraordinary efforts that went into saving your life. And that maybe, just maybe, you'd consider not scrapping all of it in an effort to pretend that everything's just the way it was."

"That's not what I'm doing," he managed, and then several of the other things she'd said suddenly snapped into clear focus. "Oversight didn't reject my application," Mac realized aloud. "You did."

Finally, something slightly approving – or maybe just less disappointed – crossed her face. "The only reason you're still a free man is because Oversight believes you did exactly what I instructed you to do. I told them I rubber stamped the op and put you in there to get Davis and flush out the rest of Aydin's double agents. You were supposed to put the tracking gel on Aydin but you slipped up and you got caught. As far as they're concerned, you're still a card-carrying Boy Scout. I passed the request up months ago and got the green light to call it. This is my decision, Mac. And I've made it."

He didn't know what to say. He knew she must have fudged her own testimony, at least a little, but Jack had said –

Jack didn't know the scope of it. He should have realized it himself. She'd already stuck her neck out for him the first time, getting him back when protocol was to stop the intelligence leak no matter what. This, what she'd done –

She was right. She'd put her career and her life on the line for him. And he had let her down.

Finally, her glare softened, and she stepped forward, placing a hand on his knee. "I told you in your very first performance review that I wasn't a fan of 'make it up as you go along'. That I didn't want to be watching on a monitor the day your luck ran out. That day was six months ago, Mac. I'm not saying the word improvise has to fall out of your vocabulary, but you're not going to be doing it in situations where you and others can be killed. Not anymore."

It took him a few seconds to formulate a response – any kind of response, and the only one that immediately came to mind was next steps. "So – what does that mean?" he tried, in as steady a voice as he could.

She patted his knee with a look that was part fond and part regret, and then took a few steps back, turning so that she could look at the screen. "You're right that you've more than proven you're capable and at home in a lab. I'd like to transition your role to consultant, with oversight of Special Projects. It means you're cleared to be here in Ops while the team is out in the field, and you can pick your own projects. You'll still be able to keep them safe."

 _The_ team. Not _his_ team. Not anymore.

Mac raised his eyes to the screen, the frozen clouds of white gas. It was sort of like looking up at a sunny sky, the shapes were irregular and indistinct enough that you could see anything in them. Cotton candy, the ears of a rabbit.

A strangely waffle-like pattern. A mobius strip.

"I can't," he said, then cleared his throat in an effort to smooth out the hoarseness. Matty arched an eyebrow at him, and he slowly shook his head, then climbed to his feet. "Keep them safe from here. I can't. Matty, what I do isn't something that can always be done remotely. I need to be there, to see what's available to find the best solution –"

"Then learn a new trick, Blondie," she told him. "Invent a new technology. You're not going back out there."

A little flicker of anger cut through all the guilt and the devastating realization of how deeply he had disappointed her. "Improvising is not the problem, so let's take that off the table."

This time both her eyebrows rose. "This isn't a negotiation-"

"No, it isn't," he agreed, and then he indicated the screen. "Matty, I knew at nineteen that I didn't belong in a lab. That's why I left MIT and joined the Army. I belong out there, solving real problems real people are facing in the real world. Maybe someday, when I'm too old to help directly I can settle down into the academic life, but today's not that day. If you want me to stay on as a – a program manager . . . thank you. I appreciate that offer more than I can say. Respectfully, I have to decline."

"You have to decline," she echoed tonelessly. "The opportunity for an almost limitless budget and resource pool. You have to decline."

What Matty was offering was simply unheard of in the private _or_ public research sector. He knew exactly what he'd just turned down. He knew the look Frankie would be giving him, if she was standing in that room. Hell, she'd probably hip-check him through the glass and take the offer herself.

And it would be perfect for Frankie. She could change the world from _any_ lab. That wasn't him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Like Saito had said, it was _his_ decision. His alone. Not Matty's.

"And I'd like to clarify a couple points," he continued, in the same respectful voice despite his growing anger. "I didn't signal you from the lab that morning because I had every reason to believe the Phoenix network had been partially or wholly compromised, and the only way to prove it wasn't would have put Riley's life in even more danger. You're right, I have a history with those men, and I knew they would believe I had been cowed, at least temporarily. Getting close was, by a large margin, the strategy most likely to yield a location on Riley and some insight to Hakan's end game."

"His end game wasn't complicated," she reminded him sharply. "Bring new life to the coup and take out as many Phoenix agents as he could on the way."

"That's true. Which is why I planned for and constructed multiple contingencies. I went into that situation with far more planning and preparation than the majority of our missions. This wasn't a failure to improvise a solution, nor was it carelessness, and I have proven to you - beyond statistical doubt - that what I do is not luck. I made mistakes. Two of them. And I take full responsibility for them."

Matty stared at him incredulously. "Taking responsibility? What exactly do you think that looks like, Mac? Running away and refusing to play ball because you can't have the one position on the team you really really want?"

It was hard to keep himself still, keep his voice controlled. "This isn't about a title, Matty. I'm not ignoring what happened six months ago, or pretending it didn't happen. I am walking and talking and standing in front of you, maybe through no good judgement of my own, but making mistakes is how we learn and grow. Any mistake at any time could get an agent killed. You said that. You told me this isn't a business where you can doubt yourself, not even for an instant. And you're right. I wouldn't have requested agent status if I didn't know that I can do the work."

Her expression shifted then, from indignant to stony. "And I told you this wasn't a negotiation. You can take the offer, or you can leave the Phoenix."

Oddly, that made him feel just a little bit better, and calmed the slight nervous flutter in his stomach that had started the moment he truly comprehended what he was saying. But what he was saying felt – true. Was a decision he was making from the place that had been torn up the most.

He belonged out there. His team was amazing, and they would continue to be amazing without him. He wasn't leaving his friends or his family, they were going to stay by him, and he by them. Even if he ended up halfway across the world, they'd make it work. He'd invent a new technology if he had to.

They'd improvise.

"Then with all due respect, Matty, I'll be leaving the Phoenix. I don't need to be an agent to help people. But I can't deny that I'd rather do it here, with you. I know what I did wrong, and I know why. I've made the adjustment, and had you been willing to give me a chance, I would have proven it to you. I _will_ prove it to you, even if I can't do that here."

The diminutive little woman gave him a long, hard stare, then seemed to deflate. "Mac, it would be yet another mistake. You are never going to get another save like this. The team – _your_ team – has finally stabilized. Alicia Wright and Tom Monnegar are integrated now. If you try and fail – and you _would_ fail, Mac – you would set them back months of hardwon trust. You know exactly how bad the consequences of that could be. Why would you even risk it?"

It was true. Had he come back, there would be no technical need for Wright and Monnegar. Most of Phoenix's teams were three men parties, as far as he knew his was the only permanently four man team. Six would be too many for most missions. Alicia and Tom had been partnered before, and they'd likely return to that. They would no doubt see it as a demotion, and they'd resent him for it.

He'd already planned contingencies for that. Now it didn't look like he'd get a chance to use them.

"Matty, the biggest risk here is not trying," he told her, not unkindly. "And it's not their trust I lack."

She gave him a long, measuring look, apparently trying to decide if she was going to take offense to his blatantly calling her out. "So you still remember that performance eval, I see."

His very first one. Where she told him that he was free to disagree with her, that she could respect that. And this was a pretty big disagreement.

"What can I say, you left an impression."

Matty pursed her lips, but didn't say anything else, and Mac realized there was nothing else _to_ say. Thanks for everything? He owed her a great big fat one, but now was not the time. Maybe he'd leave a thank-you note and flowers on her kitchen table.

After he disabled her security system and let himself in and out undetected. Would be a feather in his cap for his and Jack's security consulting firm based out of Hawaii. If Jack still wanted it. And if not, he'd figure something else out.

Mac inclined his head anyway, in a farewell gesture, then turned for the door.

"Where do you think you're going, Blondie?" she immediately demanded, and Mac hesitated, then half turned back to her.

"I told you, I'm-"

"Sit your ass back down," she commanded in the exact same tone, as if he'd interrupted her in the middle of a briefing. At the same time, the door behind them opened, and a familiar face poked in.

"Mac! Hey – uh, whoa," Bozer added, much less exuberantly as he caught sight of Matty. "Uh, you _did_ say come in, right?"

Mac glanced uncertainly between them, and Matty made an impatient gesture. "Yes. Any time today would be fine, Wilt."

He flinched a little at the use of his first name and flashed Mac a 'whoops' look, then hurried in, followed by a rather confused looking Jack and a smirking Riley. Behind her, Alicia Wright entered, coolly assessing the room, and Monnegar trailed in last, taking the temperature of the occupants before firmly shutting the door.

Mac agreed with his assessment. This was definitely not an open door kind of meeting.

"Alright people. I'm afraid you're victims of your own success, and you're headed to Marrakesh." Mac realized that as he'd been watching his team file in, she'd changed the screen to a map of Morocco, with several points of interest already highlighted.

Mac eyed the map, still not understanding, and Jack came to stand at his shoulder with his arms crossed over his chest. "What, we pickin' you up a nice Berber rug?"

"They weigh enough that it'd take all of us," Tom muttered from the back of the room.

Matty simpered. "Much as I like where your head is, I don't think you'll want to buy what they're selling." Two passports flashed up on the screen, showing Riley and Bozer's unsmiling faces and declaring them Mr. and Mrs. Gough-Calthorpe. Strangely, this made both Riley and Bozer groan.

"Are we gonna hafta trek up another jungle mountain?" Bozer whined.

Matty was supremely unmoved. "No. This time the resort is close to sea level, and you'll be wined and dined by the North African branch of the human and animal trafficking ring you broke wide open during the Borneo op."

Jack snapped his fingers. "Gettin' back to that, they broke it wide open. So why's the – the North African branch still keepin' shop?"

"Because there was no digital or paper evidence that they were working with the Indonesians." A new face appeared on the board, an African sheik Mac didn't recognize. Apparently neither did anyone else. "Meet Brahim Al-Maghribi. He's our top suspect. He controls nearly all imports and exports from Casablanca, including the human and animal trade."

"No shit?" Jack murmured, nudging Mac on the shoulder. "This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Somewhere behind Mac, Bozer gave a theatrical cough. "I can't believe Jack just quoted a movie that wasn't a Western and didn't star Bruce Willis. He didn't get it right, but still."

Mac's partner turned on Bozer, pointing a knifehand at him in warning. "Never mock the classics, Bozer. It ain't Bruce's fault he wasn't born yet."

"Humphrey Bogart aside," Matty dragged them back on track, "Mr. Al-Maghribi operates a very tight ship. All we have are a few manifests indicating the contents passed through Morocco."

"And by contents you mean people," Alicia Wright clarified, her disapproval clear.

"I'm afraid I do," she confirmed, and Mac cocked his head as he started putting context to some of the images on the screen. Matty gave him a long look before she continued.

"This is a surveil and intelligence gathering only operation. Al-Maghribi may be very good at covering his tracks, but I'm willing to bet his customers are not. Your mission is to identify as many of those people as possible and let our analysts do the dirty work. You'll be going in as three teams. Riley and Bozer, you'll reprise your previous roles as trophy hunters and traders." Mac didn't even need to turn around to imagine the face Bozer was making. That was not going to be a pleasant job, especially for two animal lovers. "The Indonesian authorities rounded up everyone they could from Mount Kinabalu, but that doesn't mean a few snakes didn't slip the net. In order to keep Mr. and Mrs. Gough-Calthorpe safe, you'll have eyes on you inside and out."

"I'll take the high ground," Jack volunteered, his voice devoid of the previous humor as he cracked his knuckles. "Maybe do a little trophy huntin' of my own."

Matty gave him a short not. "Alicia and Tom, you'll be going in as a second married couple, the Pouletts."

"Both wealthy and well-known noble families, both from the UK," Mac said aloud, completely without meaning to, and Matty gave him the same nod she'd given Jack.

"Exactly right. The two couples have a lot in common, and they're going to meet in the lobby of the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Marrakech hotel and become fast friends. While Riley and Bozer identify promising suspects among the party guests, the two teams will provide overwatch and search the indicated suites. Once you have enough evidence to put Al-Maghribi at at least two sales, our Indonesian friends will scoop everyone up."

"Easy peasy lemon squeezy." Jack clapped his hands together, like he couldn't wait to get started. "What's Mac doin'?"

Matty again shifted her eyes to him. After a few seconds, she raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"That's up to Mac."

It took him what, in hindsight, was probably not nearly as much time as it felt like to finally, _finally_ put all the clues together into a cohesive picture. She'd laid out all his mistakes and failings. Mercilessly exposed all his fears. The open disappointment, the disgust softening into fondness and regret. Reminding him about that performance evaluation. Telling him it was her decision, when she knew all along that it wasn't.

It was his.

That evaluation was as true today as it had been when they'd first had it, years ago. He _had_ proven to her that what he did wasn't luck. She'd already admitted that to him, several times. She had his results, his evals from the staff psychiatrist, from the Drs. Talbot, from his physicals and his field readiness testing. She knew it was never a question of competency.

It was about how much doubt he had in himself. Whether the decision he'd made had been made without reservation. Had been made from the right place, and for the right reasons. And he'd just proven to her – or at the very least, taken a solid first step at proving – that he had no uncertainty about his abilities and his desire to go back into the field.

She hadn't rejected his application. She'd simply been waiting for him to tell her that he was ready.

Mac glanced over his right shoulder, where Jack was standing firm, right where he always did. "Somebody's gotta watch your six, big guy. You're not exactly the world's fastest cat burglar."

Jack blinked at him, then straightened indignantly. "Now what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

Mac shrugged. "Just that all of us have skills, and . . . picking locks is not one of yours."

He received a playful shove that sent him stumbling a step, but when he recovered, Jack was grinning from ear to ear. "Why did I ever miss you, smartass?" he asked the room at large, and Mac glanced behind Jack, to the rest of the team. Bozer and Riley were laughing, looking both relieved and delighted, and beside Riley, Alicia gave Mac a polite nod of acknowledgement. Tom was doing the same thing as Mac, watching the team celebrate, and he looked –

Well, he looked vaguely dismayed at the unprofessional behavior, but when their eyes locked, there was nothing there but reserved evaluation.

Well, Boze had said Monnegar wasn't won over easily. If Mac could get Tom on his side, Matty would be right behind.

"Jack, MacGyver, your covers are waiting on the plane. Everyone gear up. You're wheels up in thirty."

-M-

 **FIN**

-M-

 **EPILOGUE**

-M-

(So I guess that means there's a little more)

-M-

 **MARRAKESH**

Mac dared to poke his head up from behind the counter, keeping a firm hand on the shopkeeper's shoulder, but the sack of flour and the lit stick of incense he'd jammed into the doorframe had done their job well. Both gunman were down; one was groaning softly and the other was out cold. Rapid footsteps crunched through the blown-out shop windows, and a second later Mac made out a sliver of Jack's face, and the barrel of a pistol.

"We're good," Mac called out, still hoarse but with plenty of volume, and Jack immediately came forward to secure the suspects. Mac turned back to the shopkeeper he was practically sitting on, who was staring up at him with comically round eyes.

"It's okay, you're safe. _Ant aman_."

The kid was no more than nineteen, clearly manning his family's souvenir shop, and Mac assumed that his non-responsiveness was due to ringing ears. He could definitely relate. Mac pulled himself to his feet and held out a hand, which the young man hesitantly took, and Mac hauled him upright, getting his first good look at the shop.

The good thing about flour was that it was only explosive when it was a very fine powder suspended in air. The majority of the effect was therefore localized where the bag had been upended when they'd opened the door. The front windows and the door itself were destroyed, but the rest of the shop was remarkably untouched. It was a fact that Mac was glad of – it was a souvenir shop to be sure, but most of the contents were homemade and very well crafted. He left the young man to survey the damages, and hopped over the counter as Riley and Bozer skidded into view.

"Mac! You good?!" Bozer caught himself on the mangled doorframe, trying to catch his breath. "They got away from us, Tom and Alicia are on the other two-"

"Ours are already in custody," a tinny voice corrected, from inside Mac's ear, and he wiggled the earwig around a little, wondering if the device was damaged, or it was just his still-ringing ears. "We didn't even have to blow them up."

"Well, it wouldn't be a mission with Mac if something didn't blow up," Riley chimed in, much less out of breath than her traditionally-garbed 'husband,' who'd had to make the run in lounge slippers. "This one's relatively minor."

"Yeah, no body parts layin' everywhere or nothin'," Jack drawled, giving Mac a wink. Mac frowned at them and made a mental note to find out exactly what kind of stories they'd been telling in his absence.

A lot of misinformation could be spread in six months.

As Jack ziptied the men and relieved them of their weaponry – of which they had a very impressive assortment – the shopkeeper's eyes became even more round. Mac was afraid he was going to bolt for the nearest state police officer, but instead he held out his hands, cupped, in a gesture of profound thanks.

"Please . . . you take," he said, gesturing to his shop. "A gift!"

Mac started to shake his head. "We're not going to hurt you-"

"Mac," Bozer interrupted quietly, and when Mac glanced at his best friend, Wilt indicated the shopkeeper. He turned back, confused, and then he saw what Boze was looking at – the notch cut out of the top of the shopkeeper's left ear.

His parents had notched it – a simple 'mutilation' of their infant son so he could not be collected and sold by Al-Maghribi's men. He wasn't terrified of the gunmen lying on his shop floor.

He was ecstatic. He knew exactly who they were.

Knowing the self-appointed sheik had had complete, unchecked control of this section of the city for twenty plus years made Mac's blood boil, and he hid his fury with effort, clapping the young man on the shoulder.

"Thank you. _Shukraan_ ," Mac gestured, and the young man nodded, then again indicated his store.

"A gift. A gift!"

"You speak Arabic?" This came from Boze, and Mac wasn't sure which of them to address first when Jack helped him out.

"He picked it up in the sandbox. Always good to know 'please', 'thank you', and 'where's the banjo' when you're in a foreign country." His partner glanced over at him with an approving sort of look. "Surprised you still remember it."

It took Mac a second to take that the way Jack meant it – that he remembered what little Arabic he'd picked up in Afghanistan at all, as opposed to having lost the memory due to brain damage – and Mac saw the same realization cross Jack's face as his smile fell. "Aww, shit, Mac, I didn't-"

"I know," he reassured the other man quickly. "I'm kinda surprised myself." It had only been six months, after all. It had seemed like an eternity, but in the grand scheme of things –

In the grand scheme of things, it was the blink of an eye. He was, as Jack would say, one lucky SOB.

Something about six months stuck in his head as they waited for Alicia and Monnegar to come by with their 'appropriated' vehicle and gather up the now fully unconscious suspects, and Mac bobbed his head as the shopkeeper became more and more insistent that Mac accept a gift. He didn't want to take anything of value, and a cock-eyed tower of postcards caught his eye. Not handmade, super inexpensive – fit the bill for something that he could accept without feeling guilty.

It also jogged another memory. This one was less than six months old.

Mac gestured at the carousel, and the young man gave him an eager nod. Mac paged through the postcards quickly before he found the one he wanted.

"Keepin' a memento, huh?" Bozer asked from his shoulder, and Mac turned with a little smile on his face.

"Keeping a promise," he corrected. "And all of you are going to help me."

-M-

 **TWO WEEKS LATER**

 **GRAND JUNCTION**

Dr. Simone Parsons padded into her office, kicking off the faded rabbit slippers and digging her toes into the thick carpet in front of her couch. Once she'd eased some of the pain out of the balls of her feet, she regarded the rabbits with an accusatory look of betrayal. One of their faded, floppy ears drooped to the ground in apology.

"I think your time's finally up," she told them. "I am not getting Dr. Scholl inserts for slippers."

They looked a little forlorn at the news, and they _had_ served her well. She continued frowning at the pair as she walked barefoot to her desk and pulled a pile of interoffice mail off her seat before sinking into it gratefully.

It was probably the autoclave, the heat had broken down the stuffing. Not for the first time, she regretted not asking TJ to buy two pairs. She'd never be able to replace them with a similar pair now.

A slick piece of photograph paper slipped out from between two interoffice envelopes when she picked them up out of her lap, and Dr. Parsons cocked her head to the side as she recognized the spire of Koutoubia Mosque. Intrigued, she set the rest of the mail on her desk and studied the postcard.

The stamps cinched it. It was definitely from Morocco, addressed to her by street, building, and office number only.

Curiously, she turned it over in her hands, to find neat English printed on the back side.

 _Hope this finds you, W, and A well. You told me if I really wanted to thank you, I should send you a card in six months. So from all of us here in sunny Marrakesh – THANK YOU. You're a life saver._

There were four distinct signatures. The looping penmanship of Mr. Power of Attorney, something with a large R and D with connecting scribbles, a short and sweet military-angled _Jack Dalton_ , and in the same neat print as the message, A. MacGyver.

Simone stared at the postcard for another moment, then finally acknowledged the fact that her body and mind desperately wanted to smile, and let it happen. It was kismet that a shadow darkened her still-open doorway, and Wanda poked her head in.

"Patient Nine's showin' signs of coming around, thought you'd want to be there . . . what's got you smilin' today?"

The doctor held the postcard up. "Handsome says hi."

-M-

The soft sound of laughter woke him from a light sleep.

Mac lay on his back, enjoying a moment of quiet peace, wondering if what he'd heard was real or the remnants of a dream. He was starting to be able to remember them, but whatever this last one, it was already slipping away. Something about a . . . a hula hoop time vortex that behaved a little like the portals from the self-named video game.

There was a distinctive thump from the direction of the main house, and Mac groaned a little and gave up, scrubbing his face before rolling out of bed and finding his way to the bathroom. Three minutes, a couple swipes of deodorant, and a clean t-shirt later, Mac padded out of his bedroom, glancing at his Fitbit.

Almost ten am.

Now almost certain it was his whacked-out sleeping patterns that were exacerbating the jetlag, Mac entered the living room to find Bozer and Riley engaged in throwing Dunkin Donut Munchkins into Jack's mouth. Despite the size of the treats, Jack was unerring in his ability to cleanly catch and dispatch them.

"Hey! Afternoon, Mac!" Bozer greeted him cheerfully, with a coffee in his hand. He thumbed over his shoulder, and Mac spotted the lone brown cup sitting in a recycled paper drink tray. He grunted something relatively grateful and was pleased to find the beverage was still hot. He removed the lid to let it cool slightly, turning and leaning against the kitchen pass-through to regard the three people in his house.

"I don't think he's awake yet."

Bozer hummed in agreement. "You really have no idea how weird this is. Usually _I'm_ the zombie after an eight hour time warp."

"Even on your worst days, neither of you hold a candle to Saito. Damn, that man hates being jetlagged."

Mac nodded groggily and took a sip of his coffee, his eyes falling naturally onto the back windows. In the next second, he almost inhaled the liquid as something light-colored and definitely _not_ meteorology-related fell out of the clear blue sky, just on the other side of the deck railing. Luckily, he wasn't the only one who had seen it.

"What the hell was that?" Riley asked, climbing off the couch even as Mac hurried across the room and up the three stairs onto the deck. A shadow crossed the wood almost directly in front of him and Mac squinted up at the sky to see the silhouette of a very close, _very_ large bird of prey.

Paully the Great Horned Owl.

Riley and Jack were right behind him, and Riley made a small noise of surprise. Jack was less reserved. "Holy _crap_!"

"Yeah, he's a big boy," Mac confirmed, continuing to the railing and peering over. If Paully was swooping around, chances were -

At first he didn't see anything, mangled or otherwise, until the shadow of the water's surface on the bottom of the pool caught his eye. There were wide circles, indicating something had splashed down.

Something light-colored, that was about to disappear right into the pool skimmer.

"Baby rabbit, ten o'clock," he called, abandoning the coffee and racing to the deck stairs. By the time he'd reached the bottom, Jack was hot on his heels, and Mac didn't bother trying to lap the perimeter of the pool. It was much faster to simply jump in. He cut a perfect dive through the water, crossing the pool in seconds, and then he surfaced and reached into the skimmer, quickly locating the wet, furry object and extricating it.

It was dirty and waterlogged, but after Mac untangled the poor little thing, he realized his mistake.

"Thumper gonna make it?" Jack called, choosing to jog around the pool rather than get his clothes wet.

"Uh . . ." Good question. Mac gently turned the limp kitten over, finding blood in the white fur. Its right hind leg was bleeding and definitely cut, and there were puncture marks in the kitten's abdomen, undoubtedly where Paully had scooped it up from wherever he'd found it. Even before the owl had gotten hold of it, the kitten had seen hard times. Mac could feel every rib. It couldn't be more than four weeks old.

But the little kitten jerked weakly in his hands, and snorted water from its nose and mouth.

"Hey, little guy," Mac soothed, and then Jack was there, and he carefully handed the sodden thing to his partner and vaulted out of the pool. Riley and Bozer were leaning over the deck railing, trying to get a look.

"If it's dying, don't tell me," Riley called, turning her back as she saw Jack practically pouring it from one of his hands to the other. "After those two trafficking ops, I can't even watch Animal Planet without feeling guilty."

"Uh . . . then I won't tell you," Jack called back, sounding a little uncertain. "Well, you're breathin', little man. Let's get you to the emergency vet and see if they can't patch you up."

Mac followed his partner, dripping his way back up the stairs, and Bozer had just fetched a towel from the kitchen when both his and Riley's phones chirped. Now wide awake, Mac realized what it meant before Riley's face fell.

"Matty needs us," she confirmed, frowning at the wet towel in Jack's hands. "All four of us."

"Okay." Bozer was using his optimistic voice. "Lemme just call the neighbors, see if anyone can help-"

"Mr. Schneider's in Florida," Mac told him, shaking the water out of his hair. "And Margie's allergic to cats. Alicia and Tom are in Madagascar -"

"It's a cat? I thought it was a rabbit-"

"Uh . . . closest emergency vet is the other direction," Riley supplied, checking Google maps. "No one else is open at ten am on a Sunday. The only clinic between us and Phoenix doesn't open til noon."

Jack had wrapped the kitten like a tiny burrito, so that only its little face was visible in the olive green towel. Its eyes were screwed shut. "You tellin' me Hollywood's finest don't have a vet they can call on a Sunday morning?"

"Of course they do, Jack, to make _house calls_. We have to go-"

"And what?" Bozer's voice was rising quickly from 'optimism' to 'panic.' "Just leave it here? Ring the dinner bell and tell Paully to stop playin' with his food?!"

The truth was, Paully had just landed in a pine tree on the north end of the property, clearly watching them and clearly still interested. Mac read the look on Jack's face, and reluctantly came to the same conclusion. "Well, it was his breakfast to begin with, Boze. And the little guy's not doing well. Without medical attention, and a course of antibiotics –"

"You did not just say that." Riley was keeping her distance from the towel, her arms folded tightly across her chest, and her mouth was pressed in a thin line. "Mac, I don't care if that's how nature works, we are _not_ abandoning an injured kitten so an owl can eat it on your deck."

It definitely wasn't his first choice, either, but she was right, they couldn't just leave it here in the house, they really did have to go –

To the Phoenix Foundation headquarters. One of the singularly best equipped buildings on the western seaboard.

"Then he comes with," Mac said, striding into the house still dripping wet. "Riley, text Phoenix medical and let them know what we're bringing them."

To say Matty was displeased would have been an understatement. Thanks to it being a Sunday, they'd made it in about twenty minutes, and she took them all in, with a special disapproving look for Mac, who was still decidedly damp.

"I understand you've already executed a rescue this morning, and while I would typically be sympathetic to the plight of a stray kitten, we don't have a veterinarian on staff, Mac. What exactly do you expect me to do with that?"

He opened his mouth, then shrugged. "Matty, I think it's got a lacerated hamstring on the hind leg, and definite puncture wounds. That kitten won't survive without medical attention and antibiotics."

"And you've got that UCLA vet in your pocket, right?" Bozer added, earning looks from the rest of the team. Matty raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?"

"The . . . vet from UCLA," Bozer repeated, a little less certain. "The one you called for Greg's grandma's service dog that had cancer?"

Mac tried to unravel that in his head, surprised when Matty cocked her head to the side.

"Bozer, how do you know about that?"

"Uh . . . Jill?" he offered lamely. "She told me, right after Myrrh was put into effect."

Right after everyone thought Matty was dead. A lot of stories had probably surfaced, with the staff believing there would be no retaliation for telling all about the amazing things Matty Webber had done for her employees.

"Greg's grandma has a service dog?" Jack had handed off the kitten burrito to Nurse Tasha, who was glancing between him and Matty, clearly looking for some kind of direction.

"Look," Mac cut in. "As soon as we're back, I'll take care of it, Matty, and make sure it ends up in a shelter as soon as it's recovered. Any medical costs can come straight out of my paycheck."

"Oh they will," she assured him readily. "You four are wheels up in ten. New York, high rise, asset acquisition. Blondie, try to find a change of clothes before then."

-M-

 **SEVENTEEN HOURS LATER**

Mac arrived at the door first and pulled it open, ignoring how heavy it felt, and how unhappy his right shoulder was about extending the attached arm. His team didn't look much better than he felt; Jack was favoring his left foot, which their 'asset' had bridgestomped during acquisition and probably broken at least one bone, Riley didn't even look up from the two phones in her hands, still trying to bypass the asset's security controls, and Bozer was schlepping all their gear because he was a nice guy.

"Seriously, Boze, I can take my bag-"

"Nuh-uh. I saw that hit you took." Wilt hitched the bags a little higher on his shoulder, like he was afraid Mac was going to try to physically relieve him of his burden. "An' he needs to go get an x-ray."

"It's fine," Jack protested, but his voice sounded tired and distracted. They all were.

That was the team that trudged into the War Room, to find Matty standing near the center of the room, watching on the big screen as the asset was deposited into an interrogation room. She looked fresh and reasonably pleased, a look that faded a little as she took in the group.

"Problems?" she asked acerbically, and Jack grunted and took a seat to get his weight off his foot.

"Asset acquired as requested," Mac replied, when no one else volunteered to speak. "As soon as Riley's able to bypass his mobile device security, you'll have your evidence."

Matty's attention turned to the analyst, who was frowning at the phones. "Sorry," she murmured, still clearly distracted. "I'll have it for you soon, Matty-"

"How's the kitten?" Bozer suddenly blurted.

Matty regarded him, then apparently noticed how she'd gotten all their eyes – including Riley's, the phones forgotten in her hands. Mac had to admit, he'd been thinking about it on and off the entire mission, and certainly on the plane ride home. The director frowned at them.

"Really, Bozer? Is that the most important thing to focus on right now?"

". . . yeah," he said, his voice still certain. "Dude's in custody, and Riley'll totally break that encryption, so it's a done deal. How's little Sebastian Winterfeld?"

Mac blinked, but it was Jack who voiced what they were all thinking. "Sebastian Winterfeld? He ain't a character on Game of Thrones, dude. That li'l guy is totally a Thundercat."

Riley's face screwed up. "Thundercat? What, you think he's gonna fart a lot?"

The team glanced at Mac, who shrugged. "I was going to go with Plato. They said the great philosopher was inspired by _Athene noctua_ –"

Matty's expression had been growing more incredulous by the second. "Did _any_ of you have pets growing up?"

She got three nods – and a slight headshake from Riley.

"Mac had a dog named Archimedes, so just ignore him," Bozer suggested "All our pets had first and last names."

"Sebastian Winterfeld is not an improvement," Matty told him drily. "What happened to sending it to the shelter?"

That question didn't make any sense to Mac. "He should still go to the shelter named . . ."

Matty's expression fell even further into disappointment. "Well, first off, Baby Einstein, he is a she." She tapped her tablet, unfrosting the glass, and right outside the War Room was Dr. Melissa Talbot, holding what looked like a baby blanket. She wasn't paying any attention to them, using the corner of the blanket to tease the contents, and they all saw a white paw dart out and try to catch the twitching fabric. Matty walked over to the glass and knocked on it, and when the doctor glanced up, Matty motioned her inside.

"I had a feeling you four would be asking about her," Matty continued. "She's around a month, month and a half old, probably separated from her mother almost a week."

Mac couldn't help a little wince. She was so tiny, and those ribs – maybe she'd been the runt of the litter. "How bad are her injuries?"

By then the doctor had let herself in and they all focused on her. She was smiling softly at the contents of the blanket, and held it out for Bozer to take. "Careful," Melissa cautioned. "Her right hind leg is wrapped."

Bozer accepted the kitten like he would have his own baby daughter, cradling the blanket to his chest before peeking inside. "Well, hey there, Blue Eyes," he crooned, and then his hand disappeared into the folds.

"Careful," Mac warned, and Bozer's delighted smile wrinkled into a grimace of pain. "They're sharp," he added a little lamely, clearly too late.

"Her hamstring was more than half severed, so you'll need to keep that leg basically immobile for the next three weeks if she's going to have any shot of healing." The doctor turned her attention to Mac, seeing as his roommate was totally smitten. "The puncture wounds introduced some bacteria, but she's already responding to antibiotics. We've got her on a liquid diet for now and she's been dewormed, so loose and runny stool is to be expected."

He was halfway through the list of supplies they would need to buy before it occurred to him what she was saying. "Immobilized for three weeks?"

"Yes," she confirmed. "That's not something that can be done at the local shelter. If that ligament won't mend, she'll have a permanent and significant limp."

Mac was miles away, mentally working on recalling the latest ligament grafting technology, so Riley took up for him, warily approaching the blanket. ". . . how do you immobilize a kitten for three weeks?"

"Improvise," Matty told her flatly, with a significant look at Mac. He absently added that problem to the growing list.

"Dr. Talbot – Melissa . . ."

She shot him a knowing grin. "Oh no you don't, Mac. Tim and I are not about to take on a kitten. Not permanently, anyway. But if you're away on mission in the next couple of weeks, yes, we can help you find someone to take care of her."

Mac closed his eyes and inclined his head. "Thank you," he told her, and he meant it. "Do you have a recommendation on food?"

The doctor produced her phone from her pocket. "You'll want to go with high quality kitten food, wet _and_ dry, and water down the dry with chicken broth. Siamese are particularly prone to respiratory infections and kidney stones, so get as much clear fluid into her as possible –" She stopped, staring at him curiously, and Mac realized his expression must have changed because she then said, "Okay, where did I lose you?"

"Siamese?" Yes, she was white-ish, but had also been pretty dirty and scraggly so he hadn't really paid it any thought –

"We ran a DNA test. Well, Jill ran a DNA test," the doctor clarified. "She's pureblooded Siamese, but half show and half apple-head, if you know the breed. She's likely to be a bit finer-boned than your last Siamese kitten."

Mac let the tactfully innocent comment go with a smile – it still made him uncomfortable to think about exactly how closely he'd been observed during his convalescence – and turned back to Bozer in time to find Riley cooing over the blanket as well. A glance at Jack was no help; the man was broadly grinning, and Mac returned the grin with one of his own.

"I'm glad you're here, doctor. I think Jack might have broken a couple mid-tarsels in his left foot. It looks like the proud parents have this under control, so I'll help him down to Medical." Jack's smile went from sunny to betrayed so quickly it made Mac actually chuckle, and the doctor turned her attention to a potential human patient.

Jack's outrage shortly found an outlet. "While we're on the topic, doc, Mac here mighta cracked a rib-"

"Oh, for god's sake. You two, take the mothering out there," Matty growled, gesturing at Riley, Bozer, and the baby blanket. "You two, Medical. This isn't a doggie day care!"

Cowed, the agents did as requested, though Jack was mumbling under his breath, "'Course it ain't, that there's a cat, there's no such thing as a kitty day care-"

"I bet there is in LA," Mac replied in an undertone, and the two proceeded down the hallway under Melissa's watchful eye.

-M-

"Don't you roll your eyes at me, holmes. A freakin' _owl_ personally delivered you a therapy kitten. That's Hogwarts-level shit. There ain't no way you can give her up now."

Mac chose to take the higher ground – which involved taking a bite of his jerk shrimp taco, and no additional eye-rolls – and he couldn't help a glance when the still pure-white kitten used her wheels to dart several feet forward. She was getting less and less afraid of the seams in the wood plank deck, and had gotten over any fear of the contraption she was hauling behind her pretty much the day Mac had outfitted her.

"Yeah, otherwise Paully will just keep dropping kittens in your pool," Riley added, in a way less chipper tone. "Most traumatic letters from Hogwarts ever."

No kidding "First, Hogwarts isn't real," Mac started, and continued on doggedly despite the deeply reproachful look his roommate gave him across the unlit fire pit, "and second, we can't keep a cat, Boze, this life doesn't lend itself to pets-"

"Cats are totally independent," Jack protested around a mouthful of baja taco, tapping his air-booted left foot on the ground in an effort to attract the kitten's attention. "Hell, if they had thumbs they'd be runnin' the world. We had a barn cat named Dammit, and he was smarter than most of the kids I went to school with."

The five of them – Alicia and Tom had joined them – exchanged furtive glances. Jack chose to ignore them, and stuffed the other half of the soft taco in his mouth.

"Cats are one of the worst things we've done to the environment," Mac disagreed. "They're the most successful hunters on the planet. A single outdoor cat can destroy the songbird population for a half mile radius –"

"Mac." Jack still had his mouth full, but his patient, lecturing tone was plain to hear, "I don't think Wheels there is gonna be much of an outside cat. Particularly not if Paully gets himself a girl and moves into that sweet condo you set up."

Much as Mac didn't want to acknowledge that, it was a good point. Even if her hamstring 'healed', it would never be one hundred percent. She was in the sixtieth percentile for her age and weight, so she was always going to be small prey. Despite her lashing tail as she bravely stalked Bozer's shoelace, she wasn't going to last long in the great outdoors. If Paully didn't get her, coyotes surely would. Heck, there were a few domesticated canines in the neighborhood that wouldn't mind a new chew toy.

"We're not namin' her Wheels," Bozer protested. "How about . . . Wild Irish Rose?"

"So she's a cheap wine now?" Riley inquired, eyebrow arched.

"She'll get better with age," Boze defended his choice.

On the other side of the pit, Tom gave the kitten a disdainful look, and she promptly abandoned Bozer's shoelace and dragged her little cart to Jack, who was offering her a piece of chicken.

"What would you name her?" Mac asked the other agent, and Tom looked up, as if the question had surprised him.

"Yeah," Riley encouraged him, leaning into his shoulder playfully, and Monnegar frowned a little, setting down his paper plate. Upon it was a shrimp, ripped into bite-sized pieces.

"Dalton's not wrong, this whole thing is totally Harry Potter," the no-nonsense agent acknowledged. "You should pick a Harry Potter name. McGonagall comes to mind – she was a witch that could turn into a cat, she was skinny and short, she could kick ass . . .Minerva would be a good name. Mina for short." He nodded his head at Bozer. "That gives you the option of a first and last name," and then the look transferred to Mac, "and if you _must_ nerd out, you can call her Professor."

For a second, no one knew what to say. They all gaped at Tom, everyone but Alicia. She just took another pull off her beer as if her partner suddenly turned into a normal human every day. "I second that. It'll get her adopted way faster."

The six week old kitten dragged her little wheeled contraption – one that left her front legs free to grow stronger and explore, as well as one of her back legs, while the other was securely held in place via small bungie stretch cords and a little cloth hammock – towards Tom's plate and helped herself to the kitten-sized shrimp. Bozer was watching her closely to make sure she didn't get caught up in the ruts between the wood planks, and he immediately shook his head.

"She's not goin' anywhere," he said fondly, then shot his roommate a look. "I don't care how bad for the environment she is, we're keepin' her. It's like Jack said. Mina was personally delivered by owl. You don't wanna piss off Dumbledore, do ya?"

Mac considered pointing out that not only did Dumbledore not exist, even if he did, he was dead, but he didn't welcome the argument that would follow. "Boze, man . . . an animal is a big commitment. We're on missions most of the month. It's not fair to her to leave her alone in the house-"

"How about you let her decide that?"

"Mac's right," Riley cut in. "Siamese are super social. If you leave her alone for long periods, she's going to get separation anxiety. If you think she's mouthy _now_ . . ."

Truer words never spoken. 'Mina' couldn't stand to sleep alone. She would drag her little walking apparatus to one or the other of their bedroom doors and cry until one of them – often Mac, who had already been woken by his Fitbit – let her in and plopped her on the bed. Once she was good and settled Mac would even take her out of her little wheelchair and let her stretch out on her side, as boneless as a kitten could be. She'd stay sacked out until dawn.

Honestly she wasn't a bad pet. She had a lot to say, and right now she was tiny, but she'd figured out litter boxes – including dragging her wheelchair into one – and their schedule with apparent ease. She hadn't started clawing the furniture yet, she stuck to her cat tree, which Mac had constructed last weekend and could probably be more accurately described as a palace, for when she could jump and climb like a normal kitten –

Yeah. They were right. She wasn't going anywhere.

Which left only a series of logistics to figure out. "So," Mac stated, setting down his own empty paper plate as she finished the shrimp Tom had left her, "how are we going to keep her occupied while we're gone? Are we going to get our kitten a kitten?" Nothing like solving a problem by adding additional problem . . .

Jack was watching her polish off the shrimp. "Let her get outta that contraption, get her leg all healed up. Who knows, maybe she won't need a friend. Besides, I bet half the analysts would volunteer to take her if we were on an op."

"Oh, fuck yeah," Riley chimed in. "Jill's this close to suing for visitation rights. Apparently the whole damn building adopted her while we were in New York."

Good to know he and Boze were good and screwed before they'd even gotten back. Mac watched the not yet dusky kitten lick her chops, her blue eyes wide and round, and she used them to inspect the fire pit footwell she was trapped in. Not finding any more shrimp or chicken offerings, she dragged her hind end over to Bozer, parked right by his ankle, and let loose with a demanding mew.

Watching the entire team respond to her – him included – Mac couldn't shake the feeling that she really was filling the role Metrodora had filled for him. A distraction, something to care for, something to bring them together. Something temporarily delicate, that he had the feeling would one day end up taking care of them.

"Mina it is," he sighed, and everyone grabbed their drink and raised it high.

-M-

THE END.

Seriously this time. All loose ends tied up, plus a super fun epilogue, as requested by **Elizabeth Wilson** and our contest winner, **I'mcalledZorro**!

Before I go any further, I'd like to call out the **Beta Who Shall Not Be Named™** (but who you actually met in this story) for all of her hard work and support through forty chapters of this monster. You helped me more than you know.

A lot went down in this chapter as well. Matty and Jack had a little talk about Mac, trying to get a feel for what his headspace was like and what he might choose to do. Mac himself struggled with that very question before being reassured by his team that they were going to be there for him, no matter what he chose. Matty tested him hard, but Mac had made his decision, and she stood by him. Then we got a quick mission in Marrakesh that ended with Mac sending Dr. Parsons a postcard – and the discerning reader may have noticed that Mac had as positive an effect on the doc as she did on him, seeing as she'd expanded her patient count to at least nine, up from five. =)

And finally, we had the winner's request, which was either Mac trying to run before he could walk and falling on his face, or getting a kitten. I had secretly been wanting to send Metrodora home with Mac ever since she was introduced, so I was only too happy to introduce the team to Minerva 'Mina' McGonagall. Who knows, maybe she'll show up in a later story. That I'm totally not writing, because this was STUPID long.

But I'm so glad that I wrote it, and that so many of you stuck with it, and let me know what worked for you, what didn't, and the parts you loved the most. As Mac told Dr. Parsons: **THANK YOU.** Thanks to each and every one of you who PMed me, left a review, agreed to be my Super Sekrit Beta Reader™, and everyone in between.


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